The odyssey of withdrawing money from the bank: why it is increasingly cumbersome and who is most affected

Spend the first and last days of the month.

"Fatal days", defines Pablo, an employee of the box of a state bank who asks not to give his real name or any other details about his place of work.

At 7, three hours before opening hours, there is already a queue to collect pensions and sometimes instead of closing at 16, the attention is extended until 19. The wait for an older adult can last up to 4 hours.

It's not new, no.

But the

, which has accelerated with the pandemic, entails problems for the most vulnerable populations in terms of the digital divide.

At the branch where Pablo works, there were twelve tellers -humans- before Covid and now only eight.

Data from the Central Bank reveal that

.

The number of personnel working in the financial system fell by 4,664 employees in the last two years, according to publicly accessible information detailed on its website.

There were 103,515 workers in December 2020 and

.

The general secretary of the Banking Association union, Sergio Palazzo, assured

that there was a "cut" of some 4,000 jobs in different sectors as a result of the departure of personnel due to retirements and voluntary withdrawals for which companies offered a

salary compensation.

In the pandemic, the reduction of personalized attention accelerated.Photo Guillermo Rodríguez Adami

Pablo assures that in the case of his bank there are usually no layoffs, but positions that are not renewed after retirements or relocations of employees.

“What they most want is for as many people to turn to the ATM.

Some of us were offered training in some other area of ​​the bank that we liked.

And many people choose to leave the box and go to sales or credit, which are better paying areas, ”he says.

Those who still use the boxes run by employees -says the bank- are "retirees, people who are on disability pensions, those who collect plans, people with little education or those who need to make large money movements."

Reconfigurations that are already seen

Beyond the degree of adaptation and learning that people have to carry out banking operations by digital or electronic means, there are certain actions that still require waiting in line at the traditional checkout counter. 

An example is the extraction of money.

The daily

at ATMs is usually $30,000 or $40,000 and, with the current rate of inflation, it is getting smaller and smaller.

ATMs have limits that are getting smaller with current inflation.

Photo Guillermo Rodríguez Adami

That limit can be increased up to $90,000 and $100,000, but that already requires a process.

One option is to do it by phone, but in general you have to have the bank phone code.

Conclusion: if you need to withdraw cash in large quantities and immediately, in general, you have to use the cashier attended by the employee.

Sources from the business chambers that group the main private banks in the country explained to

that today "people, speaking in a general public, prefer to operate in online channels, whenever they can do it" and that has made the entities "reconfigure the map of its branches" especially since the pandemic to respond to new needs.

“Some are grouping together and others have opened up.

There are many 'social integration', for example in Villa 31, in Villa Lugano, in Santamaría, San Miguel, Castelar or in Villa Jardín de Lanús”, they detailed.

And they explained that the objective is "to try to leave more specialized attention or the most complex cases in branches, and open all possible channels so that the client chooses where to be attended."

One of the novelties is, for example, “online service with the same account executive who is in the branches.

We are not talking about a bot, but about personalized attention ”, they added from the cameras.

Some branches

.

From Banco Ciudad they explain that, for example, when they installed the first bank branch in the Los Piletones neighborhood in Villa Soldati in 2012, they directly opted for a headquarters with employees who deal with financing issues, accounts and teach how to use the ATMs and home banking, instead of installing traditional cashiers attended by people.

That is to say that more than a decade ago "digital financial education was bet on", they defined from the Central Bank and highlighted that not having boxes attended by people is a decision that aims to "provide the most modern tools, which are the ones that have more projection into the future in terms of use".

increasingly digitized 

In line with what happens in other countries, cash is less and less needed for day-to-day operations.

Already even most greengrocers accept at least one virtual wallet, such as Mercado Pago.

This mobile application, which allows you to carry out financial operations such as paying or collecting, transferring, investing money, obtaining insurance or credit, already reaches more than 7 million users in Argentina through its investment tool alone.

consulted the number of total users in Argentina, but the company does not disseminate the data. 

In addition, there is the extraction of cash by non-traditional means.

"Today I pay everything with my card or through apps, and then if I need cash I'll take it from the supermarket," says Noelia, 24, as she leaves a Galicia bank branch located in Belgrano: the exception is when she's "in passing ” in the area and take advantage of using the ATM.

The Farmacity pharmacy chain was one of the pioneering companies in offering cash withdrawals.

Before the pandemic, this method of extracting money reached 49% of the cash collected, during 2020 it reached 59% and since 2021 it has held at around 62%.

Cash withdrawals at Axion Energy service stations have doubled from 2019 to date, according to what the company told Clarín

and detailed that while before it represented 30% of the cash collected, now it has gone to 60%.

How much does the cash collected today represent in relation to other means of payment?

In Farmacity, 21% of the participation is in cash, 25% in debit cards, 27% in credit cards, 9% in wallets and the remaining balance through social works.

In Axion, meanwhile, the means of payment used by customers are, firstly, cash (45%), secondly debit cards (24%), thirdly credit cards (21%) and, finally, virtual wallets (10%).

Banks, for their part, register a

.

At Banco Comafi they registered a 14 percent reduction between movements of withdrawal and deposit of cash per box.

"It depends a lot on the customer segment. However, we saw two effects in 2022 compared to 2021," they told

.

On the one hand, they had a lower percentage of customers who used the boxes.

In 2022, 33% of customers used the boxes, while in 2021 35% had done so.

On the other hand, there was a 10% decrease in the number of operations made by customers who do use the box to carry out operations.  

At Banco Ciudad they also recorded a drop in the use of boxes.

In the period from 2019 to today, operations per case decreased by around 20%.

In turn, banks registered greater acceptance of digital tools to make payments, transfers and other actions.

"Today, almost 70% of clients operate through homebanking and mobile applications," commented from the City.

In this sense, from the entity they highlighted the performance of

, the digital wallet that is owned by more than 30 Argentine banks and that was born at the end of 2020 and today seeks to compete with Mercado Pago through promotions and reimbursement plans.

From the City they pointed out that 2022 was a "takeoff year" for bank customers who use MODO.

"The volume of payments was multiplied by 14 in 2022 compared to 2021. Growth is sustained and even accelerates at the start of 2023: in the first quarter, payments are multiplied by 16 compared to the same period in 2022."

The use of plastics when paying is also increasing.

From Comafi they indicated, for example, that "operations with debit and credit cards show an increase of 7.5 percent in 2022. The growth is greater in credit card transactions, which shows a growth of 12.8% in 2022 compared to 2021".

"It is not healthy to wait two hours"

Pablo says that at the state bank where he works, everything is timed.

On paydays, each cashier -the person who attends a box- attends to one person every 3 minutes at a rate of 100 people per day.

The days they have 50 people or less?

"We celebrate."

The days that more people attend?

“Sometimes we reach

.

Customers complain.

When there is already two hours of waiting,

to see who goes first.

One says that he is missing a leg and another that he is missing an eye.

Another who is pregnant.

And what does the bank do?

“There is a colleague who is specifically dedicated to getting as many people as he can out of the room to turn them over to electronics.

He asks the customers:

'

.

,' "says Pablo.

And he adds: "But the first and last week of the month are fatal, because there are people who, due to the little understanding they have (of technology), even if they have a partner by their side, cannot apply the instructions to do things online. They do not know the key, the only thing they bring is the document and

. It would be ideal for them to use the ATMs, because it is not healthy to spend two hours of your life here, when in five minutes you can do the same with a telephone. And besides, many come with the kids, and the kids get tired."

“The vulnerable population is the most affected”

The waiting time should not exceed half an hour, at least in the City of Buenos Aires.

Law 4,389 on Dignified Treatment for Consumers defines as

any service to the public that involves standing in lines with waits of more than 30 minutes.

For Jorge Surin, professor of Consumer Rights at the University of Belgrano "the depersonalization of care is detrimental to older adults who have less understanding of technology" and pointed out that it is not the only sector where it happens that due to the incorporation of artificial intelligence technology and by reducing costs,

Clarín

also consulted the defender of the Third Age, Eugenio Semino, who opined that the problems in the banks "are the usual ones."

"Although the problem is being avoided over time, this is very gradual, because the elderly are not native to technology and difficulties will always be present."

In his opinion, “there is a form of

, which in reality is concealed by major mistreatment, such as poor service at the Pami or Anses outlets.

There is always something more serious or more serious that is hiding these other things that are becoming natural.

The general director of Defense and Consumer Protection of the City, Vilma Bouza, commented that the agency does not have complaints due to lack of personnel in the banks, but affirmed that "it does cause discomfort in the elderly or in people who do not handle technologies ”, that is, in “the vulnerable population, which is affected not only by banking operations but also by a lot of services”.

“It is good that the world is going digital, but taking into account the implications for any of us having a bank account, having our money, our savings account and credit cards, banks are the worst.

They use all the technological gadgets to hook you, but not to give you information,” he added.

The technological transformation processes, which accelerated in the pandemic, are here to stay in the banks.

Pablo believes that in the more distant future the position of cashier will no longer exist.

The challenge is to include and protect the rights of older generations and populations with less access to technology.

MG

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