Banking in the sixties, my money (such as it was) was deposited at Farmers National Bank, locally operated by local people and capitalized largely by local investors. In fact, that bank could not open a branch across the road, for that was in the next county and it was unlawful to operate a bank across a county line.
Money talks, though, and so do bankers and what they had to say was, "We want more money!" Their lobbying efforts successfully gained the privilege of free-wheeling banking. Soon my little local bank had branches in four towns, none of which were in the home county. Thus it ripened like a plum, and it was soon picked off by a much larger bank in State Capital, Indiana.
It grew. And the Cincinnati bankers' eyes widened with lust, they salivated with greed, and SC Bank was plucked by a bank in a neighboring state. Now, following only God and the Feds know how many transactions later my bank has wound up doing business under a set of three initials. No one knows what the letters represent, and I don't know where it is headquartered; and my money has all been transformed into digital information and disappeared into the ether.
And I am supposed to have faith and confidence in this.
I opened my first pass-book savings account more than sixty years ago. The account drew a higher rate of interest than do my savings accounts in the bank today, which essentially grant the bank the use of my money for free.
7 comments:
You can always make more money at a larger size. It's just a fundamental truth in capitalism. But civic duty or whatever you want to call it -- you know, the part where a business is also a service to the public -- has utterly been lost.
Jim, the operative "you" in this case is the bank. Me, personally? Not so much. "Utterly lost" = they don't even have any people to talk to, and the phone tree is more complex than the rail switching yard in Chicago circa 1950.
I have seen and experienced the same shifts in banks and banking. There may be "economy of scale," but some things don't scale well.
The shadiness of what goes on in the banking world these days is like swimming in a stream of sewage.
Chuck, certainly banking is not a service industry.
Shelly, not even considering investment bankers, commercial banks never met a "fee" they didn't adopt.
No kidding. I had a savings account as a small child that earned 4%. Now it's 1.something. We do, however, have a local bank. I'm very happy with them.
Shark, to have a local bank with which you are happy is a blessing, even if their rates are pretty standard for the day.
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