On Tuesday 9th April, myself, my partner Owen and a few of our friends went with homemade placards to stand outside Halifax bank on Abergavenny's high street. The protest was against the planned closure of the bank, following the closure of other banks recently and the proposed closures of more.
In March of this year, Abergavenny was named by the Sunday Times as 'the best place to live in Wales'. As someone who only moved there from Bristol six months ago, I can definitely attest to this. It's an absolutely beautiful place, with some lovely shops and cafes, absolutely incredible and beautiful green spaces and a really nice community of people who have welcomed me with open arms. Abergavenny feels like a home to me, in a way that I haven't had in quite a long time. In the short time I've been there, I've found my mental health to be markedly improving, and I'm happy in a way that I haven't been since I was quite a young child.
I've been thinking a lot recently about communities and how important they are (I wrote about this back in January). Since I wrote that blog, I've become aware that they are even more important than I realised then, and that most of the mental health issues that I've had since I was around nine years old have all stemmed from the feeling of not being part of a community. Human beings are an exceptionally social species, and we have an inherent need to talk to one another and communicate. The constant push to move things like banking online is a hindrance to this.
Let's talk about the Internet. The Internet is undoubtedly the most important invention of our time - nearly every aspect of how we live our lives is now dominated by the Internet. I actually don't think this is necessarily a bad thing (although I know a lot of people do). For me, a lot of positive things have come from my having a very active online presence. But I think to fully appreciate the importance of the Internet, we have to understand what it is that it's so good for. Because the Internet can both enhance communication, and suppress it. A big part of why I like social media, and why I'll always defend social media, is because a lot of my closest friendships and relationships have been nurtured primarily through it. There are some people I've met for the first time online before I ever met them face-to-face, and some people who I knew in person but only as casual acquaintances, people I would never have stayed in touch with were it not for being able to spend time talking to them online and finding out more about them. On the Internet, we can find people with similar interests to us. We can share information about things that are going on in the world with friends, without having to be fed it from above. All the best bits about the Internet, and why it's here to stay, come from the fact that the Internet is amazing for humanity's greatest necessity - communication. This is why the Internet is enjoyable.
But there are other things the Internet can be used for that suppress communication - such as ordering things online, without any need to go and speak to someone and search for it yourself. These things are not enjoyable. These things have been thrust upon us from above. This does not mean that no one benefits from them - it is quite nice to be able to buy things more easily without having to make so much effort to go into town and find a shop selling what you want - but these benefits are somewhat fickle and temporary. On the whole, it makes the experience less fun, less of an adventure - it's harder to discover something special by accident, or become friends with someone because they happen to be looking for something in the same aisle as you, or discover a new shop you like. All of these things are community-based things that we are in danger of losing, and I believe they do need to be protected.
Banking falls into this category. I refuse to use online banking every time I'm asked, to the point that the staff at my bank don't even bother to suggest it anymore because I'm notorious for my dislike of it. We're told, over and over again, that online banking makes financial transactions quicker and easier. Well, I don't think financial transactions should be quick and easy. I think they should be slow and steady, like the moral of The Hare and the Tortoise. If I'm making a big transaction to someone, I would like to be afforded the time to actually think about what I'm doing. Refusing to use online banking means that very often there isn't chance to make a transaction until the next day, next week or whenever you next happen to be in the vicinity of your bank. This is not a bad thing. On the contrary, it's a very, very good thing. It makes it far harder to be taken in by scammers (and there was a time, a few years ago, that my partner and I came very close to being scammed, and would have been had we been using online banking - the time it took between the time we were asked to pay for something and the time we were actually able to made us think about it and realise it was a scam).
Of course, scammers can be very convincing, and sometimes no amount of time will make you realise. But bank staff might, the people whose job it is to process these things and be aware of them. This is the other reason why it's important to do this in person. I don't know how it is at all banks, but at my bank the staff really have a personal approach, taking the time to talk you through exactly what you're doing, check it's all above board and that you aren't being scammed. Once, whilst waiting in the queue, I overheard the staff realise that the elderly man in front of me was being taken advantage of by his cleaner, who was charging him far more than she was entitled to be paid. I will never forget how kind and understanding the bank staff were to that person, and it hit home to me quite how important these people's roles are.
Not everyone has access to the Internet, especially the elderly. Even if the elderly do have access to the Internet, they are more susceptible to being conned, as are people with learning difficulties. My partner and I do a lot of work with adults with learning difficulties, helping them to get independence, and these people are far more likely to be able to gain control over their own finances if there are going to be dedicated bank staff helping them. Irrespective of one's susceptibility, loneliness and isolation are serious problems in our society. It is vital that people are able to keep up regular face-to-face correspondences with people, and even if it's just a member of staff at the bank, that can make a difference to a day being worthwhile.
So yes... banks are vital, and it is essential that physical branches stay open. I was delighted that so many people signed our petitions - I've petitioned for lots of things over the years, and it's been very rare that I've had to say so little to persuade people why they should sign for something. This seems such an uncontroversial issue - loads of local people in Abergavenny were keen and enthusiastic to sign, and one lady even volunteered to take some petitions and go and get signatures elsewhere. The only common objection was that someone didn't live in the local area, which we always said isn't a problem - this is about more than just this one branch of Halifax. This is about banks all over the country closing their doors. It's got to stop.
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