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Anyway, has anyone else had to experience the self service machines that Barclays are installing in their branches to replace counter service? Basically, what they've done is put up a fake wall in front of where the counters used to be, and in their place put a number of self-service machines. These aren't normal cashpoints or paying in machines, but some unique glossy black touchscreen unit from which you can do a lot of stuff from. They look like this:
I notice that in the image above, as with my branch initially, the PIN pads don't have any sort of guard around them to protect from prying eyes. They have since been added.
As a result of this, there are now a number of staff milling around in front of the machines trying to help the large number of people who don't understand how to use them, and *i think* there is now one traditional counter next to their Bureau de Change desk, which always seems to have a pretty large queue. The machines seem to work well enough, and they have the nice coin conveyer belt as used by the Morrisons self-service tills and an interesting note compartment which opens up and you lay your notes inside in a much nicer way than trying to feed them through the slot as with the more traditional machines. But, the move to machines does seem odd when considering that a smaller branch in a residential area recently put up signs advertising that they had a full counter service Monday to Saturday. Additionally, for the technophobes and most of the elderly (there may be some crossover), I can't imagine these machines are particularly easy to use! The more negative among you might say that won't be a problem for much longer...
So erm yes, has anyone else experienced these new fangled machines? I haven't seen Lloyds, TSB, Halifax or Santander trying out anything similar. Saying that, my local branch of Santander looks very old and shabby and not at all welcoming from the outside, so I suspect they'd want to make the branch slightly nicer before trying anything more radical.
