If ever there were a post custom written for @TNA and his quest for robot-automated Panera bread, this has to be it. Bank of America has seen the future, and the future is teller-less banking. How on Earth do they plan to accomplish such a feat? Through the miracle of outsourcing; first to hillbilly hellholes like Jacksonville (Go Jags!) and then quietly to the slums of New Delhi. And the current teller staff at the bank is none too pleased.
Why would you walk inside the bank and wait in line just to do business face to face when you can push a button on the ATM machine and a teller's smiling face pops up to walk you through transactions we've all been making for the past 30 years? At least that appears to be the thinking behind the move. But don't be fooled. We're just a few steps away from an IBD staffer pushing a button on his computer and having a pitchbook slave pop up to do his bidding. And that's just not okay. Who's going to protect the downtrodden bankers?
Shalom is presenting a petition to Bank of America, asking the company to halt the roll-out of the machines. He is supported by the Committee for Better Banks, a community labor coalition that aims for a "just and equitable banking industry by improving the working conditions for employees in finance."
Why don't you go ahead and try to read that last line again without having a seizure. ...a community labor coalition that aims for a "just and equitable banking industry by improving the working conditions for employees in finance." Finally, somebody's looking our for the little guy in finance. Our very own Norma Rae, because God knows we need it.
The fact is machines will replace us all, and I kinda hope I live to see it. I know @TNA is on board with it. Just think about the net benefits to the species if we can eliminate human error in fast food production alone.
What do you guys think? Is BofA playing it straight by saying this is just a pilot program and they have no intention of laying off tellers? Or is is more likely that they're testing this out to be able to shutter entire branches to save money?
If a monkey could do our job, a computer surely could. Bring on the Singularity.
This is all anyone needs...More competition from a computer.
This is what's eventually going to happen, no matter how many angry bankers and tellers protest. At the end of the day, installing a machine and paying super-low wages to hungry Indians is cheaper and more profitable. Of course, most things will be automated in the near-future so why should banking be any different?
Meh, all the outsourced help desk functions are coming back because companies realized some moron in Bangalore wasn't able to do the job. Plus, people got pissed off that they couldn't effectively communicate. Having people on site that know what they're doing will never go out of style in our lifetimes.
From a theoretical point of view, machines will ultimately take over labor. Or more to the point, we will create superior mechanical slaves and I don't forsee self aware AI as remotely close to existing. Who owns what or is entitled to what form of money...if it's necessary...will be interesting to see. The whole dominant male monkey turf concept of exchange is probably a huge upgrade from bonking someone over the head with a club but realistically humans are so fixated on who is entitled to what that they piss away most of their lives on things they don't matter. When machines take over, who will own what and who will care?
When I was with HSBC I knew people involved in something like this. You'd walk up to the ATM and the floor mat would sense a person on it and the ATM would come to life. You could do a bunch of things including opening an account. It was kind of a pain and you needed a person to basically help/monitor it, but it did do a lot of things.
See, I don't want machines to replace everyone. I want them to make things safer and better, but the people I want machines to truly replace are just assholes. Like when I go to Cosi and want my turkey chilli. I want a machine to make it and insert that tasty bread without fail.
But really. This is why you can't really have a living wage. It is also why lettuce won't be $50 bucks a head if illegal immigration ends. We already have the technology to have machines pick all crops and machines make burgers. The only reason we have people do them is because it is cheaper to pay someone than the large, upfront cost of buying and installing a machine.
And I always laugh how people talk about "50% of people working at [insert minimum wage job] are on public assistance". Well guess what. Thank you minimum wage provider for saving the public 50%. You increase minimum wage and that 50% figure will jump to 100%.
At least my bread will be in the bag.
"just and equitable banking industry by improving the working conditions for employees in finance." Whats the source on this? I'm curious because depending on the source we are talking about two entirely different groups of people here. On one hand you have the high school grads who can count money and on the other hand you have highly intelligent (at least in some ways) humans. I am willing to be the "finance professionals" in this case are the high school grads who can count money.
Some banking functions will probably be increasingly replaced by machines. E.g. trading. However, it's difficult to imagine IB being replaced by machines - you still need people to interact with clients after all.
Bank teller was my first job as a 16 year old in high school...the truth is, the only reason that line of work hasn't yet been rendered obsolete by computers is the comfort and reassurance of face-to-face transacting. It was almost humorous how automated and mindless that job is...sure, every once in a while you'd have some 'exotic' transaction (aka having to wire money to a foreign country, real elite type stuff), but I had co-workers who would take smoke breaks--and I'm not talking cigarettes--and then come back in and deposit your paycheck for the month. Retail banks are really concerned with being 'community oriented' and 'for the people,' which I can sympathize with, but when the guy taking your deposits and divying up your cash is so torched he can barely spell his last name, it makes you wonder if the possibility of human error is really necessary...... Conversely, if a robo-teller fucked up my transaction I would probably have an aneurism
I had that happen actually, I tried to deposit like 5k in cash and the atm didn't recognize any of the cash and only the checks that I had deposited. I wanted to break the screen with a hammer but then wanted to punch the teller when they spent 20 min on the phone trying to figure out what to do.
I hope to see the singularity arrive too.
My boss and I had a great idea at lunch the other day. We are going to start an outsourcing company of nothing but mutes and we'll contract to coffee shops, moving companies, etc. Its the best of both worlds. I have a person that is accountable but they cant annoy me with stupid conversation that I didnt want to engage in in the first place. Gonna be a billionaire
hi its a nice post
Couldn't agree more. However, for 1 banking job that a machine replaces, 3 more are created to create, implement, and manage that machine. It's not a shrinkage of employment, rather a shift in skill sets required to be employed
I work at a BB in the commercial division and when I look at the internal job postings, nearly half the openings are tech/software development jobs. And they all pay really really well.
What? No. You think each machine needs multiple people supporting it? The shit are you talking about. One development team could create a system that would eliminate branch workers by the hundreds, if not, thousands.
I think he meant to say for every job category they replace three people will be hired.
Granted you can achieve scalability, but one development team doesn't just consist of a nerdy coder in his apartment, it requires a team of people managing the front-end, the back-end, QA, server management, customer support, etc. There's a reason why Oracle has 122,000 employees.
B of A has 5,377 branches in the US. say, 6 employees at each and thats 32k employees. If you dont think that an automated teller type system would reduce that number on aggregate (post dev and implementation teams) I have a bridge to sell you.
I don't think the kid realizes that companies like Oracle are doing constant refresh cycles.
Oracle has products that service billions of people. Not just a ten to twenty million. Huge difference. Not to mention look at online banking, I would be willing to bet that more people use online banking now than use their local bank branch.
I don't think HPM was saying that bank branches will go away entirely. You will still need someone to process loans, sell credit cards and mortgages etc.
Alliteration aside, hillbillies don't reside in Florida. Get your cultural references right before running your trap, you carpetbagging yankee.
A petition? LOL. Bank of America has already spent the money. Unless they present a proposal in an amount rivaling the sunk cost plus possible realized investment, they better run and get out of the way. Speaking from a consumer point of view, I'm none too pleased with this idea also. I like it when I go in the bank and can get serviced by a cute female teller. A cold hard machine just seems so impersonal. But alas the future is nigh and change is just a facet of life.
You realize that they still have employees right? If enough of them start to just dole out extremely shitty service all at once the bank will loose customers like blood flowing from a major vessel. While I don't think the bank would die because of it. It is very possible that the banks own employees can cripple it.
Also keep in mind the people who maintain the machines themselves. Sure you have the dope who refills the cash, but there's also people who fix these things, install the upgrades, repair them, and maintain them. Dude that hangs around my bar pulls down six figures maintaining ATMs. Plus, the machines are expensive. A touch screen kiosk can run thousands and it's not like they last forever or don't break down. PLUS, as soon as some other bank gets newer and shinier equipment, you have to keep up with the Jones. I'm guessing that a certain amount of the work force is going to be replaced by machines, but there's probably plent of situations where paying some kid $7 an hour to get stoned and accept deposits makes a whole lot more sense. At least for the forseeable future.
@johnwayne7 Easy there, General Lee. I'm from New Orleans. I even lived in Jax for several months and quite liked it, back when I was still young enough to appreciate trashy things.
@raissa27 Junior banker functions could be automated/outsourced to some degree though.
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