Make ATMs Great Again: Bank Of America Opens Branches Without Employees
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Feb 7, 2017
McDonalds replacing minimum-wage workers with “Big Mac ATMs”; Coffee stores replacing low-paid barristas with robots, and now Bank of America opening branches with no workers at all.
According to Reuters, the latest trend when it comes to retail banking is to do what every other industry is doing, and eliminate paid labor entirely. In that vein, Bank of America, has opened three completely automated branches over the past month, “where customers can use ATMs and have video conferences with employees at other branches.”
Like many U.S. banks in recent years, Bank of America has been reducing its overall branch count to cut costs even as it opens new branches in select markets. New branches are typically smaller, employ more technology, and are aimed at selling mortgages, credit cards and auto loans rather than simple transactions such as cashing checks. The move is similar to a parallel shift away from active, and highly paid, management, to robotic, algo, and other generally passive, and much cheaper, forms of asset management. Only here we are talking about near-minimum wage jobs quietly going extinct.
It was not immediately clear if the robots have learned the sneakier “cross-selling” techniques from Wells Fargo, or how to churn one’s account with excess fees as per JPMorgan.
Bank of America spokeswoman Anne Pace said there is one completely automated branch in Minneapolis and one in Denver, both of which are relatively new markets for the bank’s consumer business. They are about a quarter of the size of a typical branch. The new branches were mentioned briefly Tuesday by Dean Athanasia, co-head of Bank of America’s consumer banking unit, during a question and answer session at an investor conference, but he did not provide details.
The Rest…HERE
