subject: Are Traditional Banks Becoming A Thing of the Past? [print this page] Are Traditional Banks Becoming A Thing of the Past?
The other week I was pondering on shifting the way I save my money and I had this thought that came to mind
Will the traditional bank someday become a thing of the past?
I started to ask myself these questions Are there any incentives other than "the current way" we pay our bills to continue to use banks? Banks don't seem to offer any kind of attractive interest rates any more. The banks don't seem to be in the mood to loan money. I actually had a bank manager say to me "Brad, it's not like we can loan you money." What? Did I hear correctly? "We cannot loan money out."
Isn't that the basic concept of how banks make their money? They loan out money and in returnthey charge interest. Seriously, if banks don't want to loan out money these days and they cannot offer any kind of decent interest ratesthan what is the incentive to keep using a traditional bank other than to pay my bills? It can't be the fees they charge for every single little thing.
Why not put my money in a Scottrade, E-trade, Fidelity, Charles Schwab account or something like that instead? These types of investing places usually have a savings account now. If I use their savings accounts, than I can also invest a portion of my money in various investments. And if I make over 1% on my return than I am already doing better than most banks!
So besides paying the bills What would I use a traditional bank for? And again, I wonder if our current banking system may be becoming obsolete? To be honest, I worry a little bit if our banking system cannot one day improve upon things, than we may have a real problem on our hands.
If you work for a bankfeel free to chime in. This is just a thought I had the other week and so I thought I would bring it up for a discussion.
If any of the investment companies are out theirand reading thisthey just need to offer a service in where I can pay my bills, etc. and honestly.why would I not make a complete switch?
