Bank Automation

This chapter provides a case study of the broader developments in Chapter 6. The banks were large-scale employers of clerical labour in both small units (the typical branch) and much larger, specialised “office factories” (head office departments, notably in cheque clearing). They had been pioneers of interwar office mechanisation and placed themselves at the technical frontier of large-scale computing in the 1960s. Computers were introduced to reduce staffing pressures but bank employment rose continuously until the mid-1970s. Banks began and ended the computer race with conservative technical choices but flirted with more experimental hardware and software in the mid- 1960s. To some extent, the banks were victims of the software crisis noted in Chapter 6, but were also in part responsible for the disappointing impact of automation before 1973. This chapter begins by surveying the banks' staffing problem in the 1950s and then the partial successes with the new computer technology in the early 1960s. The third section examines the banks' difficulties with third generation computing. The fourth looks at some of the new products that became possible after the introduction of computers, and particularly the cash card/credit card. Finally, British experience is compared with that in the USA.