Banks statement

© Simon Poulter 2021

As a statement of the somewhat bleedin’ obvious, digitisation has changed everything. Want that new album? Amazon will have it on your doorstep by 1pm tomorrow (though there’s no guarantee it won’t have been nicked by 1.30…). Can’t be arsed to go out to the supermarket? Don’t worry, your groceries will come to you! And as for banking, well, you can do all that with your thumb and your iPhone while perched on the sofa. 

Digital technology, the Internet and, specifically, the smartphone, have transformed modern life beyond all recognition, but along with it - and these last couple of years have brought this into sharp focus - have increasingly made our high streets look threadbare, with retail chains disappearing online (or disappearing altogether) to be replaced by the ubiquitous coffee outlets, charity shops and fast food outlets. In many towns, the banks that were once local community fixtures - and in a large number of cases are even listed buildings due to their heritage - have been repurposed into pubs, restaurants and even homes.

Digital commerce has also led to a reduction in cash being used. Before COVID-19, its use in the UK was in decline, according to the Bank of England, which found that only 23% of all payments in 2019 were made using cash, down from close to 60% a decade earlier, as debit cards and digital payments became more commonplace for everyday purchases. Withdrawals from bank machines have dropped to less than £100 million a day, which sounds a lot, but not for a country of 67 million people. The pandemic has seen cash usage fall even further, as people work from home, shop online and continue to hold concerns about handling paper money. On average, people now go to a cash machine less than twice a month, down from three times a month before the pandemic hit, according to the ATM operator Link. All of this reflects the banks’ progressive retreat from our high streets. Five branches have been closing for good every two working days since 2015, and last week it was announced that TSB plans to close another 70 of its locations, leaving just 220 remaining next year, down from 536 only a couple of years ago. 

For many - but not all - online banking has changed the traditional consumer banking experience, and the move to cashless, contactless payments - especially during the pandemic - has made the idea of entering a bank branch to grapple with an inadequate ballpoint pen on a chain and quaint old paying-in slips seem archaic. But that doesn’t mean that cash hasn’t disappeared altogether, and nor does it mean that people have stopped writing cheques. There are still legitimate trades that only take cash (or, at least, prefer it), and just this month I received a cheque from the DVLA for a car tax refund. So where do you go to pay all that in?

© Simon Poulter 2021

Like everywhere else, our local high street has been gradually losing its banks over the last few years. Once it was resident to all the main clearing banks and building societies, but the Barclays and Santander (which, as Abbey National, was where I held my first ever savings account) have gone and in February the Lloyds will join them. For cash, along the half-mile stretch of our high street there are machines outside NatWest, HSBC (when it works - that one has been out of order for three weeks) and Nationwide, plus one inside a Tesco Express and another outside a convenience store at the opposite end.

According to recent research by the Mail On Sunday, the biggest clearing banks have closed down 2,766 branches over the last five years - a decline of 36% - and those that remain are increasingly staff-free, relying on indoor self-service machines for most transactions with a single employee to help out with any questions. Gone are the days of having a conversation - difficult or civil - with your friendly local bank manager. According to the Mail, Barclays and HSBC have been closing staffed counters for their combined 32 million customers in the UK, leading critics to say this is all part of a cost-cutting exercise intended to drive up online operations. All very well, but even in 2021, not everyone is online. Like my 92-year-old mum, who still writes cheques. It’s not just people like her: there are those who aren’t familiar with technology, or have physical impairments, such as blindness, which makes the use of technology near impossible, and welcome the ability to speak to someone face-to-face.

That’s not to say that digital banking isn’t a good thing, for those who can access it. I’d be happy if I never received another paper statement again (and it’s still bizarre that one bank I use still issues paper communications as a default, unless you switch it off). But clearly there are, still, situations which require the ability to speak to an actual human being. Given the time it often takes to wade through multiple levels of menus when you try and call a bank, you can’t fault people for wanting to do their banking old-school, and walk into a bank branch to speak to someone behind inch-deep armoured glass. Research for Consumer Intelligence recently found that, in a poll of 1,027 adults, nearly half preferred a face-to-face service, countering the argument that banks put up that people prefer to do their banking digitally. As with all aspects of the retail economy, COVID-19 has impacted banking, but according to the Financial Conduct Authority, many banks’ opening hours haven’t been restored to pre-pandemic schedules. One in three still shut at 3pm, which has also been cited as part of the effort by banks to push customers online.

I suppose, though, I should consider myself lucky to live near a high street that at least still has some bank branches: increasingly, rural communities aren’t so fortunate. Even worse if you live in the Falkland Islands, where the only cash machine in its capital, Port Stanley, is due to be closed down  in the coming weeks.

Picture: ING

While banking has become increasingly dehumanised in the UK, digital banking hasn’t totally taken over elsewhere. I recently went to Amsterdam to sort out some personal banking issues which had to be resolved in-person (don’t worry - I don’t operate a drug or diamond business on the sly. This is a legacy of having lived in the Netherlands for almost ten years). The Dutch have been one of the most digitally-advanced nationalities on the planet, and seemingly introduced online banking long before anyone elsewhere. But not being Dutch, and no longer living in the country means that when communications break down, and a measure as simple as changing my postal address needed to be finally taken care of (having been prevented by more than a year of pandemic-induced travel restrictions), the only option was to sort it out in person. To their credit, my two banks - ABN AMRO and ING - treated me well, not the least of which being that my appointments were conducted in fluent English (gratefully appreciated, given my atrocious Dutch language skills), with friendly but business-like staff taking care of me. And the bank branches in Amsterdam that I visited were smart, modern, comfortable and attractively designed. Welcoming, even.

Even if we accept that banking is adapting - or reacting - to the digital revolution, not every bank is retreating to the virtual world completely. In Italy, the Ligurian regional bank Banca Carige is introducing what it calls “NextGenBranches” that are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but run entirely by computers. Each branch features plush-looking workstations at which customers can plonk themselves down and conduct all their banking, from opening new accounts to applying for credit cards and loans, and even getting mortgage advice via a video links to a human adviser. Scanners, printers, card readers and other tech enables other types of bank interaction. From a customer point of view, this is all about convenience and modernity, but you can’t help feeling that it’s another nail in the coffin of the banking sector being a career choice,

Auriga, the company behind the Banca Carige concept, is even talking about rolling out these desks in other locations, such as supermarkets. In the UK, too, banks are also looking at setting up banking facilities in other retail settings. Fintech business OneBanks has developed a pop-up ‘kiosk’ that can be installed almost anywhere instantly, requiring a single staff member to supervise its use, but it also uses a combination of a smartphone and a traditional bank card to work. Three OneBanks kiosks have been installed so far in Co-op branches in Scotland, in towns without any traditional banking outlets, and the company plan to install another 150 within the next three years. And, despite dwindling numbers of high street post offices, some of the major banks are believed to be evaluating installing mini branches inside postal centres, probably in lieu of them closing main branches in town centres.

Perhaps we can be reassured that local banks aren’t going to completely disappear for good as digitisation continues, but there’s no ignoring the fact that banking is dwindling. On top of the elderly and digitally disenfranchised, there are still the very real needs of small businesses to be taken into account, enabling them to pay in cash takings safely, which often can’t be facilitated by hole-in-the-wall machines which have cash limits and security risks, although banks are considering the introduction of new machines that can handle larger sums. That said, machines can go wrong and, despite the banks’ best intentions, can and do get hacked. Perhaps George Banks, the constipated financier father in Mary Poppins, was onto something when he encouraged his son Michael to bring his tuppence into the Dawes, Tomes, Mousely, Grubbs Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, where it “will compound”.

Lost and found: tomb raiding or celebration of a legacy?

© Simon Poulter 2021

My entry to the blogosphere happened by accident: a foul mood one Monday morning resulting from England’s latest humiliating exit from a football tournament led to a 1,000-word rant written on a train and in need of an outlet. Thus, this blog’s predecessor, What Would David Bowie Do? was born. It was never meant to be about The Dame (it’s title came from a throwaway remark by a former girlfriend) but over the course of its lifetime, my love of David Bowie’s music was progressively rekindled as I found myself dipping into the extraordinary body of work he had recorded. His death on 10 January, 2016, brought that blog to an abrupt halt. It just didn’t seem right to continue with that title, which was simply a nod to a throwaway, Jägermeister-fuelled quip in a Yosemite boozer. So I wrote my own obituary and WWDBD? ended there. 

Of course, I wouldn’t stop blogging, and there was only going to be one source for the new one’s name, hence the reference you see at the top of this page. Even now, people think I’m a Bowie blogger, but I haven’t actually written anything specifically about him for a couple of years. Today might change that, as I kick off what I’ve presumptively declared David Bowie Month, for no other reason than the 26th will see the release of the latest box set of Bowie reissues, Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001). The package will feature remasters of output in a period where Bowie may have struggled, remarkably, to fit into the Britpop wave that was going on at the time, but in Black Tie White Noise, The Buddha Of Suburbia soundtrack, Outside, Earthling and Hours, still produced utterly compelling material. 

The period also covers a phase of live performances, where Bowie had a white-hot band and was seemingly comfortable in his skin performing all the old classics. Thus, a BBC Radio live recording from 2000 (originally released as part of the limited-edition three-disc Bowie At The Beeb) - a warm-up for his legendary Glastonbury headline performance - is included in the set, along with a collection of odds and sods called Re:Call 5. The true draw to the package, however, is Toy, the semi-mythical record featuring new versions of Bowie songs from the very beginning of his career, but which wasn’t deemed by the record company to be releasable in 2001. I can assure you there will be more on Brilliant Adventure nearer its release date.

© Simon Poulter 2021

Last week I indulged my fandom with a visit to the new ‘Bowie 75’ pop-up shop in London’s Heddon Street, opened (along with a sister branch in New York) to provide an outlet for devotees to gorge themselves on merchandise, music and other paraphernalia (such as a Stylophone with which to recreate the iconic middle-eight of Space Odyssey). I won’t deny that purchases were made (high-quality vinyl reissues of the ‘second’ David Bowie album and The Man Who Fell To Earth, plus the scintillating Live Nassau Coliseum ’76 recorded on the Station To Station tour - Bowie in his absolute ’70s pomp). 

In the shop’s basement you can listen to vintage songs spruced up with ‘360 Reality Audio’ (Sony’s new ‘spatial’ audio technology), as well as play around with magnetic lyrics stuck to a pillar, composing songs as Bowie once did with cut up newspaper headlines. There’s also a red telephone box in which you can have your picture taken, a hat-tip to the shop being located across the road from the building featured in the cover art for The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, setting the scene for the alien Ziggy’s arrival on Earth.

If people think all this is fan gouging, then that’s up to them. After all, people appear to be paying significantly north of £80 for Adele tickets next summer, so no one has the right to judge what people spend their money on when it comes to pop music. Most of the merchandise on sale in the shops is available on the official Bowie website, but there’s more to it than simply a couple of glorified souvenir kiosks. The London and New York stores (the latter located close to Bowie’s SoHo home of 20 years) have been opened for a strictly limited period, leading up to what would have been the artist’s 75th birthday, on 8 January next year. 

“I’m really emotional,” 35-year-old fan Nikky Smart told The Times the other day while visiting the Heddon Street store. “It’s kind of like they’ve brought him back again.” I can’t say that it was really like that for me, but it was all very tasteful. And seeing most of a back catalogue of 27 studio albums, live sets and compilations on sale, alongside the T-shirts (yep, I bought one), baseball hats, jigsaw puzzles and all the rest, was a poignant reminder of the sheer body of work Bowie left behind when he succumbed to cancer in 2016.

Picture: The Rolling Stones/Bravado

The Bowie 75 shops are just the latest retail ventures opened by heritage acts to interact with fans. The Rolling Stones opened their own ‘Official UK Store’ in London’s Carnaby Street in September last year - a brave move given that it was that brief period of 2020 when normality resumed and people went shopping again, albeit tentatively. The Stones previously had a limited-period concession at Selfridges in Oxford Street to provide the template for the Carnaby Street shop, making it largely a platform to flog somewhat expensive T-shirts bearing the legendary ‘lips’ logo and various pieces of Stones album art. The Bowie shops also arrive a few weeks after Queen opened their own store, also in Carnaby Street, and dedicated to the band’s five-decade career, selling limited edition music releases, fashion collaborations with brands like Champion and Wrangler, Johnny Hoxton jewellery and other ‘lifestyle products’, whatever that means. 

All these band-based retail concepts appear to have two types of punter in mind: tourists that (in theory) throng to London’s West End, and in particular, social media-savvy youngsters looking to post their visits to Instagram and TikTok (that said, the Bowie shop seemed to be mostly customised by middle-aged blokes…er…like me). “We’re really looking at two things,” entertainment consultant Lawrence Peryer explained to The Times last week when talking about how the Bowie shops came about. “We wanted to create a place for the long-term Bowie fan to come in and find out something about Bowie that they didn’t know before, and have an experience they’d not had before, but also to connect with a young audience. David was always ahead of his time, always changing to connect with the younger crowd, and we’re hoping this will carry on the tradition.” 

Bowie certainly was ahead of his time: many will have seen on YouTube his highly prescient interview in 1999 with the BBC’s Newsnight in which he told a sceptical Jeremy Paxman that the Internet - then in relative infancy - would affect society beyond all recognition. “The potential of what the Internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable,” he declared. The year before, Laurence Peryer had helped Bowie create his BowieNet website, widely considered one of the earliest pioneers of online music. It’s just one facet of Bowie that makes him still fascinating today, even before you start delving into the myriad characters and guises he quite consciously invented as avatars for his music. That was something he effectively did up to his dying day, with the morbid, out-of-body experience that was Blackstar, with its conscious references to impending death, which eventually occurred, uncannily, two days after his 69th birthday and the album’s release.

Bowie had a history of prescience. Invariably depicted as an inveterate Mod magpie throughout his life, appropriating music and fashion from wherever and whatever took his fancy, he also kept an unearthly beady eye on technology trends. In 1997 Bowie hatched a plan to monetise the master tapes of his recordings, foreseeing the rise of online streaming services that, as we now know, would only generate paltry revenues for artists compared to what they were used to with sales of physical formats. In the end, Bowie struck a deal with insurer Prudential to issue ‘Bowie bonds’ which used future royalties from his material as collateral, effectively enabling him to borrow against his back catalogue. The deal raised $55 million - shortly before Napster and the file-sharing boom came along, heralding the online music revolution that the industry has been coming to terms with ever since.

Today, as the online platforms Bowie predicted in his Paxman interview have eaten dramatically into sales of physical music formats, many artists have turned to striking deals with companies like the investment vehicle Hipgnosis. In the last year it has bought the rights to the catalogues of artists as diverse as Neil Young, Beyoncé and Blondie. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon have also sold their songwriting for eye-watering sums. Now, the Bowie estate is looking to get in on the act, with the Financial Times reporting last week that it is negotiating a deal for the artist’s albums that could raise anything up to $200 million, to be distributed between the artist’s widow Iman, son Duncan Jones and daughter Lexi, an agreement that would complement another signed recently with Warner Music for the recorded music catalogue.

Posthumously, Bowie continues to merchandise his work with a steady stream of reissues and deluxe packages, including the compilation box sets Five Years (1969-1973), Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976), A New Career In A New Town (1977-1982) and Loving The Alien (1983-1988), each containing respectfully tarted-up versions of original studio albums along with recordings that encapsulated Bowie’s stage magic. There has also been a series of live albums, released one by one to build up a box set of their own, Brilliant Live Adventures, and drawn from Bowie’s so-called ‘wilderness years’ in the 1990s when he was, incredibly, not in vogue (all these recordings had been officially available online previously, but lucratively making the available physically, with a limited edition slip case drew in the likes of me - and I haven’t been disappointed, either). Indeed, I’ve had no problem buying any of the these Bowie packages, even if they mean owning the same albums over and over again. Each - as will the forthcoming Brilliant Adventure - contain enough trinkets of genuine appeal to the fan and, if bizarrely, such people exist, provide an entry point to the work of one of popular music’s most richly artistic and charismatic figures. Yep, I know: I’m a record company marketing manager’s dream. Sue me.