You are here: silicon.com > Financial Services

Peter Cochrane's Blog: No email, no banking

Customers like me will vote with their keyboards

Tags: customer service, banks, email

By Peter Cochrane

Published: 3 July 2006 10:45 GMT

Peter Cochrane

Written in Bangkok and despatched by wi-fi from one of what seems to be an almost infinite number of free wi-fi service providers here - this time a coffee shop

What would you think of an international company or organisation that had no facility to send or receive emails? Personally I try to avoid doing business with all such organisations and especially those which tell me they only use fax for security reasons.

Worse still are those who will only communicate by letter on security grounds - I avoid working with this group of companies too. What century are these folks in?

Written and printed material is so easy to intercept, so easy to fake, it beggars belief that anyone still persists in this Dickensian activity.

You might suppose that no email equates to some small, second-rate, back-street, fly-by-night operation. But - surprise, surprise - it seems the majority of big EU and international banks have no email facility as a policy. Can you imagine a bank with no email? It seems as unlikely as a pub with no beer!

So here I am in Bangkok with a friend trying to sort out a financial issue with a major bank in the EU and I have to deal with a communication turnaround of about one week by letter. They don't seem to be able to cope with fax, let alone email - and all important telephone calls have to be validated by letter later. I'm sure you get the picture - frustration on a stick!

The reality of security risk (in ascending order) actually goes like this: email, fax, letter - with email being the most secure. And yet the perception of the retrograde thinkers is precisely the reverse. Written and printed material is so easy to intercept, so easy to fake, it beggars belief that anyone still persists in this Dickensian activity. 'Pass me another quill pen, this one is blunt!'

How long before these and other institutions get with the programme, or better still, fold altogether? Judging by the attitudes of the young and increasingly the older customers, I'd say less than 10 years before they will be in serious trouble. Modern life demands modern technology. People have no choice and neither do banks and companies. The customers will vote with their keyboards!

And so the next step for me is to close down this EU-based international bank account and move all the assets and services to one providing email access.

Peter Cochrane is an engineer, scientist, entrepreneur, futurist and consultant. He is the former CTO and Head of Research at BT, with a career in telecoms and IT spanning over 40 years. Peter has also held a number of prominent academic positions including the UK's first Professor for the public Understanding of Science and Technology. For more about Peter, see www.cochrane.org.uk.

  1. Zones
  2. Management
  3. Networks
  4. Software
  5. IT Services
  6. Hardware
  1. Verticals
  2. Public Sector
  3. Financial Services
  4. Retail & Leisure

silicon.com Financial Services
Get the latest financial services news straight to your inbox. Sign up for the FS newsletter today!


  • Jobs
WLAN/Wi-Fi Account Manager (Major Telco) London, 60K+ 60K OTE

This is a high-profile, business-critical role within my client and as such will require an experienced Account Manager/Sales Manager who is able to ...

Principal Consultant

CRU Strategies provides market and commercial consultancy, assisting; major metal and mining companies in their strategic decision making; banks and ...

DIRECTOR located in Brussels, Belgium

Knowledge of Spanish and/or Portuguese is an advantage.Remuneration:The post has an attractive salary and remuneration package, comparable to that ...

Nick Beecham and Belinda Doshi
No more tax breaks for offshoring?
Financial services firms must prepare now for 2010 legal changes

Tim Ferguson
On a new Voyager, tackling fraud and the intellectual challenge
Interview: Nationwide IT director, Peter Stafford

Nick Heath
David Lister on smart grids and why he left RBS
Interview: National Grid CIO

Andy Jones
Why banks will push ahead with offshoring
Comment: Even if they don't want to

Catherine Stagg-Macey
Legacy IT holding back insurers
Comment: Economic crisis means finance giants must step lively

Julian Goldsmith
The City fund manager with no IT department
Q&A: How asset management is embracing the cloud...

Agenda Setters 2009
Welcome to the ninth annual Agenda Setters poll – silicon.com's list of the top 50 most influential individuals in the technology and IT industries, from techies and CIOs to entrepreneurs and business leaders. Find out more in our latest special report.




Quick Sitemap Links: