Not to impute to Old School banks any kinder and gentler motivations than New Banks, but one edge the OS have over the NB in a case like this is that OS were set up in an era before smart phones and web pages, etc. So their old ad creaky but ubiquitous infrastructure is still in place. Mostly antiquated systems become a liability (Southwest Airlines!) but sometimes they are an asset (physical branch banks where there are actual people to talk to!). IMHO the future will be blended: mostly online but with physical backup. Even Tesla, which experimented with online-only sales, quickly backtracked and kept (but not all) physical stores. I recall talking to a Chinese friend about why so many B2C startups in China still had physical presences, and his vivid answer (in English, this is not my inept translation) was "A Chinese customer wants to know where to find the person whose neck to wring if something goes wrong."
Not to impute to Old School banks any kinder and gentler motivations than New Banks, but one edge the OS have over the NB in a case like this is that OS were set up in an era before smart phones and web pages, etc. So their old ad creaky but ubiquitous infrastructure is still in place. Mostly antiquated systems become a liability (Southwest Airlines!) but sometimes they are an asset (physical branch banks where there are actual people to talk to!). IMHO the future will be blended: mostly online but with physical backup. Even Tesla, which experimented with online-only sales, quickly backtracked and kept (but not all) physical stores. I recall talking to a Chinese friend about why so many B2C startups in China still had physical presences, and his vivid answer (in English, this is not my inept translation) was "A Chinese customer wants to know where to find the person whose neck to wring if something goes wrong."