Editor's Blog: Banking on a human or computer?

The other day I went to the high street for the first time in ages to deal with my finances. Well, it was partly my finances, mostly those of my daughter - now approaching the ripe old age of five months. Either way, I was shocked by the experience.

I wanted to open a bank account for her and also put her Child Trust Fund voucher to work. (Before anyone unfamiliar with this system in the UK gets the wrong idea about the term 'trust fund', let me stop you right there. It's a £250 voucher every child gets at birth, going into an account - either shares or cash, am I sounding like an IFA? - that he or she can get when they turn 18.)

I managed to do both those things. But almost an hour later, I emerged feeling lucky there is now the internet, or on the odd occasion the phone, for dealing with everything from credit cards and loans to mortgages and pensions.

The problem started when I went to identify myself through an existing account with the institution, which of course was necessary before I supplied my baby's birth certificate and so on. Think of all the organisations you have to inform when you change address. Well, out of what feels like about 18 of them, this place was the only one I'd kept in my family's home address, where I was brought up.

There followed much sucking in of breath and a few sideways glances - do I look like one of those ID theft types? - before eventually a trawl of the Electoral Roll (yes, they do that) showed I wasn't lying about my current address. My driving licence wasn't good enough proof.

But so far, so good. But then with accounts opened left, right and centre and the prospect of more post arriving for a person years off reading and writing, a switch was thrown... the cross-selling began.

Had we considered their critical illness or life cover "... god forbid something should happen to us and leave the little one all alone"! I replied that I'm covered through work.

"How about for your wife?"

"We have life insurance."

"But would that provide enough, in this day and age?"

And so it went on.

I was pitched a new mortgage, pension, savings account ("seeing as you use the internet we have a 'special' rate") and home insurance.

On the last one I bent a bit. I said it comes around every November for us. If we were to be contacted in September or October I'd happily consider a quote.

Then I got passed a basic form on a piece of paper and asked to fill in details such as how much we currently pay and - I did raise an eyebrow - the name of our current provider.

I said knowing a time to call was a good lead and pushed the piece of paper right back across the table. I would have mentioned CRM if I thought there was any point.

And the point of all this? We might complain about the odd mistake online or badly designed page. And clearly call centres can get your goat. But both - the internet by a massive margin - are better than trudging around speaking to pushy or ill-informed staff.

In fact, I should go further. Some of the customer service and customer satisfaction that we now take for granted online is downright smart and yet we act as if it's always been the norm.

My daughter will be banking online from a young age and, you know, I kind of think that's a bit sad. Taking a piggy bank along to a friendly teller at a local bank or building society was part of my childhood. Mind you, so too was raiding the account as a 12-year-old to buy an Atari games console, which didn't impress my parents. But that's another story.