TOPIC:

Disappointing stuff to hear bankwest will be closing their network of braches by the end of October twenty 24. Some 7 and a half months from the time of writing. Apparently 15 regional sites will be converting to commonwealth bank branches by the end of the year. There are approx 25 bankwest branches in the metro area that will cease operations. Not sure how many job losses? It's been said all bankwest atm's will also be closing!
They have decided to invest in becoming a digital bank nationwide.

 

The old R&I Bank should never have been privatised and when global GFC happened it presented a golden opportunity for our government to buy it back for a steal although I'm not sure governments are allowed to do that.

Paul Keating said the Commonwealth Bank should never have been allowed to buy it. It's virtually now finished with all the branches to disappear. My parent's banked there. I hated sitting in the R & I Bank in Morley while Mum queued up waiting to cash her weekly housekeeping cheque.

Branches are disappearing everywhere from all the major 4 banks. It's why I hate being paid cash, I have to go to a branch to deposit it at the two ATMs in my local shopping centre. They are often out of order. It pisses me off.

What a terrible business.Screwing first home-owners,Business owners with high interest rates.
And taking away their customer service.By closing all branches.Isolating the older generation who are not tech savy.
Going to be fun for the cash businesses.Standing at the Atm with 5k in a paper bag.

Gone now, owned by CBA for a while now, bit of a miracle they lasted this long. They will run a half arsed online bank for a while before migrating across to CBA website.

I find the online banking pretty easy now - but also frustarting at times.

I hardly use cash, but I HATE the eftpos fees for usage and they should be banned.

Citibank recently did this across to National.

Banks are on the way out like cash.

I probably enter one once or twice a year now if that, and even then they force you to use the ATMs.

 

Do you think going completely cashless is a good thing Bazza?

My 5 cents worth on that Mr A is an emphatic no! The govt and big business will make it sound wonderful. But wait for 2 or 3 years down the track and one unholy mess is going to unfold.

Mr AFL wrote:

Do you think going completely cashless is a good thing Bazza?

I'm not sure, I hardly use it anymore, but oddly enough last Friday I went to buy something and noticed a sign up 1.25% extra to use tap and go, unusually I had some cash on me to cover it and for first time in ages paid cash, assistant looked shocked and had to retab the bill less the surcharge.

Then got a heap of shrapnel back as change and remembered what a pain the neck cash is.

 

Bazza wrote:

Mr AFL wrote:

Do you think going completely cashless is a good thing Bazza?

I'm not sure, I hardly use it anymore, but oddly enough last Friday I went to buy something and noticed a sign up 1.25% extra to use tap and go, unusually I had some cash on me to cover it and for first time in ages paid cash, assistant looked shocked and had to retab the bill less the surcharge.

Then got a heap of shrapnel back as change and remembered what a pain the neck cash is.





 

Nothing worse than being behind someone at a checkout or counter while they painfully get their purse out trying to find the coins for the exact amount of money or plonk it on the counter to separate it trying to find the right coins. Admittedly that’s usually the elderly and they grew up with cash like most of us here before paying with plastic became a thing.

My Mum is 88 and uses plastic these days, probably helps my sister works for a bank and is probably the one who educated her. I see pro cash peddlers on Facebook with all these conspiracy theories and yes it’s possible in a disaster that online goes down then cash is king as they say but even in that instance, they usually cant open the till because there are safety mechanisms in place so they can’t even take cash.

From a bookkeeping point of view electronic is the way to go. I use Quickbooks Self Employed and have it connected to my bank accounts and they suck the transactions up and I can create rules so I don’t have to do diddly squat and everything is automatically categorised. Any transaction that doesn’t fit the rule I categorise manually and bingo can view, email or print by quarterly P&L for BAS and end of year statements for the accountant.

I don’t need to bother with receipts for things like fuel, only get receipts for things I need a record of if something goes wrong. Even then I’ve got an electronic record if I lose the receipt. Using cash it becomes critical you don’t lose that receipt or you are screwed.

Of course if you are a person who doesn’t like being an honest citizen and paying taxes then you want cash but it will eventually catch up with you when you have to explain how you can afford the things you have on the paltry income you report to the tax man year in year out. Then you can lose everything.

For what it's worth I hope we don't go completely cashless as I think cash still has an important role to play in the future.

Bazza wrote:

Mr AFL wrote:

Do you think going completely cashless is a good thing Bazza?

I'm not sure, I hardly use it anymore, but oddly enough last Friday I went to buy something and noticed a sign up 1.25% extra to use tap and go, unusually I had some cash on me to cover it and for first time in ages paid cash, assistant looked shocked and had to retab the bill less the surcharge.

Then got a heap of shrapnel back as change and remembered what a pain the neck cash is.


 

Bazza Aldi does that. tap and go costs you.
Stupid as it is if you insert the card and use your pin charges don't apply.
Doesn't compute.
Same card different outcomes.
They prey on the vulnerable.