It was his bank’s limited counter service and indifference to his struggles with ATMs and apps that forced a Spanish pensioner to act, highlighting the panic the digital revolution is causing many older people.
For Carlos San Juan, from the eastern port city of Valencia, the tipping point was an incident with an ATM in which the bank staff “flatly refused to come out and help” and would not let him in because he did not have an appointment.
A retired urologist from Valencia, San Juan went home and wrote a manifesto titled “I’m elderly, not an idiot,” which was initially signed in December last year by about 100 friends and acquaintances. It struck a chord, quickly finding its way onto the Change.org online platform, where it picked up nearly 650,000 signatures of support and was put before the authorities.
Photo: AFP
Such was the pressure that Spain’s three main banking associations last week signed a protocol in the presence of Italian Minister for Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation Nadia Calvino pledging to improve customer service for older people.
Bank branches “will expand their counter service opening hours,” “older people will be prioritized” and “ATMs, banking apps and Web pages will be adapted with a simplified interface and language,” said the Spanish Banking Association, one of the signatories.
San Juan hopes the measure will end “the plight of those who still have banking books, and that of older people with mobility issues having to queue in wheelchairs, with walkers or sticks, who have to “keep coming back” to see a bank employee face-to-face.
“I have Parkinson’s disease,” said San Juan, a friendly, eloquent 78-year-old who normally goes to the bank when there are fewer people because he needs more time.
People his age need to be shown patience, he said.
“We might learn something today and then forget it two days later,” he said.
Older people are “absolutely not against digitalization... That’s here to stay,” he added. All they want is “a more humane transition” into the future.
Spanish Banking Association president Jose Maria Roldan agreed.
“San Juan has made us all realize we need to look after those who can’t go as fast and those who will always need help because of their personal circumstances,” he said at the signing ceremony.
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the Spanish banking sector has halved its number of branches to about 20,000, shedding nearly 40 percent of its employees — who today number 172,000, European Central Bank figures showed. That is an average of eight employees per branch, compared with an average of 12.5 in neighboring France, which has 402,000 employees and 32,000 branches.
Some are already trying imaginative solutions to address the problems. In Anover de Tormes, a tiny Spanish village of about 100 residents, a library bus pulled out of the mist and parked.
In November, the “Bibliobus” was fitted with an ATM that David Mingo, head of culture for Salamanca Province, described as “an important first step towards resolving a big problem.”
After serving six people, the bus moved on to Santiz, which has 300 residents, three bars and a school.
In front of the “Bibliobus,” Agustina Juan, 79, admitted with frustration that she does not know how to withdraw money with a card. In the three villages visited for this report, only one person used the ATM to withdraw money.
“I have no idea how to use it. You know why I have it? So I can pay by card when I go to the supermarket,” Juan said with a shrug.
The bigger problem is trying to resolve an erroneous banking charge or any other problem.
“I have to travel 40km [to the branch] to see what’s happened. Or if you phone up, it’s awful. The line is always busy and you have to keep calling,” she said.
At her side, 76-year-old Raquel Vicente said that the elderly have lost track of their finances.
“The only thing you can do in your old age is count your money, but with the system like this, you just can’t see it, so you live in this constant state of distrust,” Vicente said with a sigh.
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