One of the many extraordinary things to emerge from the Northern Rock debacle, has been the plight of its online customers who have been unable to withdraw their money because the website wasn’t working.
The bank claims that the site was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of traffic, whereas customers understandably suspect that the site was closed down in order to restrict withdrawals.
It’s all rather reminiscent of the 1987 stockmarket crash, when private investors complained that they couldn’t get through to their stockbrokers when they wanted to sell, because they suspected that their stockbrokers had taken their phones off the hook.
Whatever the reason for Northern Rock’s online customers not being able to access the bank’s website, this incident has highlighted one of the drawbacks of online banking – namely, that you can’t always get the immediate access to your money that you expect.
Even when there isn’t a run on one’s bank, most people will have experienced the annoyance of not being able to carry out important transactions online because their bank’s website was down.
Whether the Northern Rock debacle will put bank customers off internet banking because of the way in which online customers were treated remains to be seen.
But it is a timely reminder that, while building society passbooks and cheque books are starting to look increasingly quaint, in times of crisis such as now, these paper-based instruments for moving money around have suddenly taken on a comforting aspect.
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