Staying Up Late... Banking

from the well,-why-not? dept

It's not all that surprising to find a bank admit that plenty of their online banking users like to bank late at night. The report doesn't actually give percentages, so it's not that helpful in understanding just how much of their clientele likes to bank at night -- but it does still raise some interesting questions. Before internet banking (and, to a lesser extent, phone banking), it was pretty much impossible to bank outside of normal banking hours. It would be very interesting to know just how many people now do a lot of stuff late at night that used to only be available during the day. For example, how many people do their book shopping late at night, rather than waiting for when the local bookshops are open? It's yet another way that the internet has really changed how some people get stuff done by letting the actions fit their schedule, rather than the other way around. Of course, related to this, it would be interesting to know how many people find that they're up much later than they used to be, because of tasks they can take care of on the internet, instead of during the day.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Jim, 27 Oct 2005 @ 1:12pm

    banking at night

    I don't think we have to wait for the banks to determine how much more banking is done late at night nor do we need any stats to know that much shopping is done after hours on the internet. We can just talk to our circle of friends (that have computers and use the internet) to determine the internet and its many doors opened up to all of us have made life much simpler and easier for us. We no longer have to rush to beat the doors being locked or the open sign being turned off on the drive-through banking windows. As convenient as those were, internet is much more so. Shopping on line right now allows us to buy less gas also, as we can get our merchandise in the mail or from the UPS of FEDEX man.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    The Other Mike, 27 Oct 2005 @ 1:49pm

    Re: banking at night

    I only disagree with one thing you said. Talking with our circle of friends to find out the norm of late night banking/shopping habits??? You realize that's like having Trekkies ask their friends if they watch TV right?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Stinky Old Fart, 27 Oct 2005 @ 1:56pm

    No Subject Given

    In my circle of friends, I'm about the only one who does his banking and shopping online, and I'm the only one who does it late at night. Circle of friends is NEVER a decent sample ratio, no matter how popular you are.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Stinky Old Fart, 27 Oct 2005 @ 1:58pm

    No Subject Given

    I don't stay up any later than I used too. I simply get to pace myself a little more during the day as I'm not under pressure to get business done before the business closes.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Amit, 27 Oct 2005 @ 2:09pm

    Banking Late.... Definitely a plus

    I think banks should be open late in the evenings if not at night to allow people to bank according to their convenience. Most of us go to work from 8-6 (if u have a decent commute ) or atleast between 9 and 5 and most of the banks close around that time. It would be real nice if banks stay open late in the evenings atleast couple of times during the week.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    steve, 27 Oct 2005 @ 3:34pm

    bankers

    What I want to know is why their customers have stood for an increase in fees to process these transactions electronically. One IT admin can now service what used to take 100's of tellers to service.
    Yes, I know software and hardware costs money but it couldn't be anywhere near what a salary plus benefits cost for all of the tellers the server replaces.
    I'll keep sending my payments by mail just to get my money's worth and keep my neighbors employed.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Happy user, 28 Oct 2005 @ 1:50am

    UBoC online banking Vs BofA "service".

    is this a "news article' or a "realisation article"?

    I don't see the "dirt" in this posting... althought I did JUST LOG-OFF of my online banking website.

    I do feel that with the advent of internet banking, people are relaying LESS upon their own bookkeeping skills, and more on those of the bank's skills -- meaning that people usually just do online banking to check balances and see if their leger notes match up to the bank's leger notes -- for self-approval that the user's math is still correct.... IE, "too much faith in bank's bookkeeping, and less faith in their own".

    On a side note, i am glad that Union UBC/Bank of California now begins their nightly maint (online banking) from 2am until 6am. It was a ABSOLUTELY NOT POSSIBLE to login from 10:30pm until 6am because of. "system is down for nightly maintenance, please try again in 30 minutes", 7 DAYS A WEEK from first conception of their banking up until early 2005... HECK, what is the point of online banking if the only time you can access it is during "normal business" hours of 7am through 10pm... because of this, I would do most of my banking AT WORK, and was thinking of switching to (gawd forbid) BofA/Bank of America (not even the SoCal GAS company accepts ANY payment from customers who use them).

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    pizza, 28 Oct 2005 @ 8:41am

    Re: UBoC online banking Vs BofA

    "On a side note, i am glad that Union UBC/Bank of California now begins their nightly maint (online banking) from 2am until 6am. It was a ABSOLUTELY NOT POSSIBLE to login from 10:30pm until 6am because of. "system is down for nightly maintenance, please try again in 30 minutes", 7 DAYS A WEEK from first conception of their banking up until early 2005... HECK, what is the point of online banking if the only time you can access it is during "normal business" hours of 7am through 10pm... because of this, I would do most of my banking AT WORK, and was thinking of switching to (gawd forbid) BofA/Bank of America (not even the SoCal GAS company accepts ANY payment from customers who use them)."

    Check out some college scheduling programs. they're offline from like 10pm to 6am. Yes, *computers and web pages* are unavailable during late night hours. When I was stuck working graveyard, that made signing up for school a hell of a lot more tedious than it really needs to be in this day & age.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    jaded, 28 Oct 2005 @ 9:06am

    Late Night Banking

    I always use online banking after 6. And sometimes closer to 11. Unfortunately my bank seems to like to do all of their maintenance at 11pm PST...when I am likely to try to do the banking. This typically affects online access, phone banking and even card activations. Hint hint Wamu, try doing your maintenance at 2A PST....

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Oct 2005 @ 9:55am

    Re: Late Night Banking

    Why do online banking services have a 4 to 7 hour down-for-maintenance window every night of the week? don't they have faster computers? or at least one that can add up numbers really quick and get that maintenance window down to less than 30 minutes? unless they are much of their electronic maintenance by hand still - who knows?...

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.