Have high street banks lost their squeeze?

Written by Dave Wallace
21st March 2025

The other day, I was rummaging around at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards and rediscovered a very old juicer that belonged to my mother.

My advice to banks is: be more old juicer!

It’s a basic contraption made of aluminium but painted in bright colours. It took me back to my childhood, watching patiently as mum would juice oranges. I can still taste that citrusy nectar.

Despite being very basic, this juicer is an actual thing of beauty. I would say a design classic. And despite having more airmiles than Taylor Swift (I travelled a lot as a child), it still works. You get an orange, cut it in half, pop it in the juicer, then squeeze using the handle. There is not a huge amount to go wrong. The leftover is just an orange peel, which can go straight into the compost. Simple, but amazing.

I then reflected on a long-gone juicer I had bought when I went through that fadish stage that middle-aged men seem to go through of triathlons, juicing, and trying to eat more healthily (at least during the week).

This juicer was a beast and was my pride and joy for a few weeks. It could juice pretty much anything. But it involved some preparation. You had to peel the orange before putting it in, and what was left was pulp.

For some reason, my son explained the anaerobic qualities of pulp: it rotted rather than composted, creating an awful smell and attracting rats.

After those few weeks, it broke. The engine stopped working, precipitating a moment that can only be described as “juicer rage”.

I know, I know. This is a fintech publication, not Homes and Gardens, but I am getting to it.

I mentally wrote the above as I traipsed around Henley-on-Thames, trying to get money from a cash machine. And why was I traipsing? Because Henley, which used to have every bank branch under the sun, now has none. And the town’s one cash machine was out of action. And why did I need cash? Because my bank’s mobile app was not working. The patient workman that I had promised to pay using that clever invoicing functionality that, when I click on it, opens up open banking, would not get paid when I had promised. The Post Office came to my rescue.

What used to be so simple is now complex, like the juicers.

The old juicer had so little to go wrong that it didn’t.

The new juicer, built on the latest technology, had plenty to go wrong, and it did.

As banks retreat from the high street, taking their cash machines with them and relying on digital channels, the basics are heading out the window.

Suppose you can’t get cash easily. What’s the backup for people? Stuffing cash under our mattresses again?

As banks retreat from the high street and digital dependency grows, the basics risk being overlooked.

Regulators have recognised these vulnerabilities. The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), recently enacted by the EU and influencing the UK’s regulatory environment, mandates that banks build resilience into their core. Yet, recent events demonstrate gaps between regulatory ambition and operational reality. Like the reliable old juicer, simplicity and robustness in technology design are more vital now than ever before.

Rather worryingly, the UK may be going into peak bad times for banks going wrong. Banks’ underlying technology is creaking at the seams. Old legacy is finally catching up as banks scramble to remain relevant and layer new tech on top of old.

In juice parlance, they have built extensively on the old juicer, and it is finally showing signs of giving up.

In recent weeks, a number of UK banks have faced several significant IT issues, and these incidents are part of a broader trend of IT failures within UK banks. Over the past two years, nine major banks and building societies have experienced at least 803 hours of unplanned technology and systems outages, equivalent to more than 33 days.

These recent outages have caused considerable disruption, particularly on paydays, affecting millions of customers’ ability to access and use essential financial services.

As we enter into a Faustian Pact with AI and head into the future, there must be mechanisms to support customers when things go catastrophically wrong. I have written extensively about Q-Day and its potential impact on encryption. Estimates are that this is at least a decade away. But who’s to say that some corporations or governments are much more advanced than they are letting on? And don’t get me started on solar flares. Both are existential crises and are currently science fiction rather than fact.

But modernisation, which is a known known, opens up the potential for disaster, as the last few weeks have shown.

My advice to banks is: be more old juicer! Think carefully about edge cases and have simple solutions as backups for when things go wrong. And maybe, just for me in Henley, give us back a couple more cash machines.

About the author

Dave Wallace is a user experience and marketing professional who has spent the last 30 years helping financial services companies design, launch and evolve digital customer experiences.