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Comment by rb808 | Hacker News Reader

So Mr. Stevenson was frustrated when his previous retail bank's computers were down - so he moved to a computer only bank? Nice logic. I hate branches but its nice to know when everything is screwed up I can go into a physical place and talk to someone. The next crisis when your virtual bank app stops working - what are you going to do then?

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If it's down for you, it'll be down for the branches. The point of these new banks are so that you can do anything inside the app without having to jump through endless hoops. An example, I'm using Monzo now (a new "challenger bank" in the UK). If I want an overdraft I can enable / disable that in the app. Same goes for if I want to disable my card, change the pin, order a new card. Everything's just easier. No need to spend ages on the phone going through menus and verifying who you are.

The bank can disable your account by mistake or have any number of other bugs affecting only small number of customers. With physical bank it is so much easier to make enough noise so at least they spend some time on you. With phone support they can just promise to call you later.

My experience with message based support from challenger banks has been very good. Much better than I get from my traditional bank.

Devil's advocate: when that new market settles (app-only is the norm and not a "challenger"), will the effort/cost expended on effort be as high?

Unfortunately, it won't. So let's enjoy things while they last - when a market matures, quality always goes down the drain.

Probably not, but there's nothing stopping me from changing banks if and when that happens. In the UK there's even a system that will automatically migrate all your direct debits.

This is the opposite of my experience. Getting _anything_ sorted with a physical bank takes a long time, prone to error, needs multiple phone calls/in person visits.

The one time I had a problem with Monzo they sorted me out over chat inside the app in ~2 minutes.

Having been a BankSimple Beta customer, and sticking with them until they were acquired by BBVA, you’re screwed when something goes wrong until customer service fixes it. Highly recommend a bank with branches over online only. There is value in being able to go into a branch and having an in-person complaint addressed.

What do you think they use in branches? Their internal network.

What do you think they can do if their internal network is down? Nothing more then apologize and offer you a coffee.

When the TSB problem happened, going to the branch was useless.

Yeah I don't really understand that statement in the article either. A computer fault can affect any company in the banking industry - irrespective of if they are "app" only.

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