I noticed today that some new construction more or less in my neighborhood now has a sign in front of it saying it's going to be a bank. Okay. That makes, by my count, four banks or credit unions that are either being built or have opened in the last year within a mile or two radius of my house.
What's up with that? There's that much of a shortage of places to put your money around here? I really hadn't noticed it being a problem.
xoxo
8 comments:
Sure--now that places up the coast are saturated with Bank of Americas, they've got nothing to do but stalk closer to where the big raises have more recently been earned. (That'll teach you to blog/brag about it!)
I would really have preferred a Thai restaurant, a fruit market, or even a Starbucks, rather than another financial institution, but no one asked me.
Or you could visit here, and get your Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese all within the same restaurant. No Starbucks, though, though the coffee place across the street also pours Guinness... Hmmm... Does that and the continued absence of banks say something about my street?
You just keep taunting me about your superior Asian food, mister, and you just see if you get any arnica :-P :-)
Hmmm, does the word "smorgasbord" appear in any Asian language?
I think the banks are counting on us thrifty New Englanders to bail them out of the mortgage mess...somehow. They forgot the part where we keep our hands in our pockets.
I'm really bemused by the the mass proliferation of retail banks... which has not only taken over Harvard Square, it's taken over many locations in Manhattan, for example (as was pointed out to me a couple weeks ago).
Thing is, only a few years ago the banks were actively discouraging retail customers, saying they cost too much for too little revenue. They much preferred commercial accounts and those kind of customers that had so many zeros in their balances that they needed "private bankers". That's when they started charging fees for using tellers "too much", etc.
One can see the results of that thinking in Fleet Bank's (now Bank of America's) incredibly busy Harvard Square branch. 1990's renovations caused them to literally bury the tellers in the basement, primarily accessible only through a nasty industrial enclosed cement staircase who's existence is not at all obvious if it's not pointed out to you.
So what happened since the mid-90s dismissal of the retail customer? Did they finally realize that there's gold in them thar pockets? Most of the time I'd much rather have a useful retail store than yet another branch of another bank I don't use... or mostly, even the one I do use, since I need to see a live person so infrequently
That's definitely part of my puzzlement about the whole thing. Hasn't about everyone's employer forced them to go to direct deposit? How often do you really need to cash a check these days? What are we all supposed to be doing at these many, many bank branches that can't be done at the ATM? Applying for loans? Is that it?
I'm guessing it's got to be loans, too. But really, how many loans does any customer need, and wouldn't you be willing to go one more subway stop away to get one?
It's no just the US, though. HSBC and Banamex and ScotiaBank all had branches about every 10 feet in downtown Mexico City, so whatever retail magic all those branches produce, they do it in foreign countries, too.
But just try finding an ATM in the middle of the Yucatan. Or gas, for that matter.
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