2. LA IDENTIDAD Y LA ESTRATEGIA COMO EJES DE LOS MOVIMIENTOS SOCIALES
2.3. ACCIÓN POLÍTICA NO-VIOLENTA COMO ESTRATEGIA
Applications of computer technology continued to play a role in articulating the strategy of the trustee savings banks (Marshall, 1985: 41). In 1983 a new computer centre for TSB England and Wales was built in Wythenshawe, with the aim of providing a single integrated on-line real time facility throughout the retail saving bank network. In 1984 the government published a White Paper and a new TSB Bill in which the quasi-federal decentralised structure was abandoned in favour of a central organisation which was no-longer legally unique but incorporated under the Companies Act. The aim was to give the then called TSB Group ‘a more effective operating structure and also establish clear guidelines for ownership and accountability, neither of which was clear under former legislation.’ (Marshall, 1985: 41).
In terms of computer applications, the creation of Wythenshawe resulted in the closing down of regional computer centres.71 For security purposes, operations at Wythenshawe were duplicated with a second (dedicated) centre at Milton Keynes. Perhaps as a legacy of the cold war, tapes, transaction logs and other back ups were taken daily to a third back up site, whose location was ‘secret’ (but suspected to be located in Rowntrees in York) which assured the TSB would be operational in spite of ‘an attack’. At the time, system experts outside the TSB doubted whether the switchover in one go, of all of the accounts, to a single computer centre would work. But in the judgement of house experts prevailed and was proven right, as the TSB then became the first UK retail financial institution to have a full real time, on-line system. Through this process the TSB then created the largest network of computers and introduced leading edge software applications for fraud detection and management of cash machines (while replacing Burroughs R2000 with NCR 1780 equipment). Lack of substantial legacy systems plus the relatively simple product portfolio built upon the adoption of the latest available computer applications.72 It would take years if not a decade before the larger clearing banks completely abandoned batch processing:
‘It was really amazing what we could do at the TSB. I think we were the first bank to go fully on line. Balances were there immediately, you could print customer statements on the spot, order cheque books, cancel direct debits and standing orders right away. Many of these features were available in the new autotellers. I can’t remember any of the clearing banks being able to do that. I
think we got so many accounts because we could give such a good service on the spot and it was fantastic. Others had forms to fill in for this or that and then posted to Leeds or Scotland or wherever.’ (Shipley, 11/Mar/2008).
However, as the TSB increasingly adopted a multi-divisional structure, the relationship between branches and head office became ever more distant and some times tense. There was growing feeling at the branches that people at head office did not understand how things ‘in the front line’ worked:
‘In those days after we were floated in the stock exchange [in 1986], we changed our name, logo, image, started to do our own clearing, etc. We wanted to be taken seriously and wanted to become more prominent as a bank. However, all the branches had Financial Times delivered everyday. It was expected for customers to read. But in fact, no-one was really interested. They just pilled up.’ (Shipley, 11/Mar/2008).
For one the adoption of ‘hub and spoke’ distribution (Ballarín, 1985; Channon, 1988; Canals, 1994), meant processes were removed from branches and centralised either in city, regional or even head office locations:
‘I did not want to particularly return to the bank. Although I was very happy there, things had changed [since I left to marry and raise my children to school age]. They had introduced secretarial pools and other stuff like that which make it look very much like the manufacturing type of job I didn’t want to take when first employed.’ (Whitmore, 08-February-2008).
The TSB like banks and building societies had done since the late 1960s, begun to attract university graduates rather than the traditional school leaver:
‘The graduates were fine. They had a head to get around how things banking worked and were quick off the mark. These people were very intelligent and good at what they did. But the truth was that they were helpless when having to sit down and deal with a customer. At that time people were frighten to take loans, to borrow money and these graduates didn’t know how to talk to the customers in a way the customers felt comfortable. They would also often move to jobs outside the bank. I was not surprised when they dropped that graduate training scheme.’ (Shipley 11/Mar/2008).
Like others in retail finance, the TSB faced growing resistance for greater automation from organised labour.73 Union representatives would tell staff at branches that: ‘every time you push one of these [autoteller] cards, you put a nail in somebody’s job’. A direct legacy of the success of the labour movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the philosophy of the banking unions was very much ‘one person, one job’. There were not into flexible working practices. At the same time, the large clearing banks would not allow people to move between them and once out of one, people would not find employment in any of the others.74 The TSB was a one union
bank (National Union of Bank Employees or Neube). When most of the other banks and building societies were two or three union banks and more often, encouraged employees to form staff associations to keep the unions out (as the staff associations tended to be management orientated). As a result the trade union movement was very slow moving in the other banks while the TSB was dominated in its dealings with Neube. So as a result of particularly strong union and in spite of a state of the art information systems platform, cash machines and other forms of automation arrived a the TSB, but perhaps not as fast as they could had.
Things were eventually to change and by 2008, part time workers (called ‘key staff’ a s they come in at ‘key’ moments) became common:
‘Women can now work at sociable hours or be off when the children had school holidays, things which were not an option in the 1980s. But we did offer a service and cared about customers. Today all staff was asked to be more sales oriented, all is about selling, it’s a selling environment. People are under so much pressure to perform and to do what the computer says. It used to be more laid back as we didn’t have that many customers (because in those days people were paid in cash, in a wage packet every week and didn’t need to have a bank account.) I understand we have to compete and all that. But it just got tougher. And that is why after 25 years on the job I’ve decided to go [by taking early retirement].’ (Shipley, 11/Mar/2008).
5 Conclusions
The research in this article was conducted through an historical evaluation of the role of computer technology within two loose confederations of non-bank participants in retail financial markets. On the one hand, computerisation in Britain took place in tandem with the amalgamation of a into a single provider. Mechanisation and automation were primarily adopted to achieve greater economies of scale. On the other hand, Spanish savings banks remained independent and came together to exploit opportunities offered by computer technology to achieve diversification in the product portfolio (i.e. economies of scope). On balance, the development of managerial and risk management capabilities rather than the use of technology, seem to explain the relative success of Spanish savings banks in contesting bank markets. Although a large market share within lower income individuals together with low transaction processing costs made the TSB an attractive target for amalgamation in the mid- 1990s.
Research results in this article support the idea that competitive collaboration can enable the creation of inter-organisational processes and procedures to distribute otherwise inaccessible information. The development and transformation of competitive capabilities of one or all of the partners, therefore, should be seen as the appropriate indicator for successful collaboration (Ross, 2002b: 56). However, the intensity of competition could remain unchanged unless opportunities opened by collaboration are implemented successfully (Bátiz-Lazo and Del Angel, 2003; Bátiz- Lazo, 2004).
In this article we have focused on the British savings banks while articulating a running comparison with developments of similar organisations in Spain. This meant we failed to address an important dimension of European savings banks: their active collaboration to present a common face to a number of issues (see Maixé-Altés, 2008). For instance, in 1984 and CECA had became involved in an international project led by the Instituto per L’Automatizacione delle Casse di Risparmio Italiane (IPACRI) of Italy and the TSB (Maixé-Altés, 2008). Spanish, Italian and British representatives presented a technical proposal to the European Savings Bank Group in 1985 that was developed in 1988. EUFISERV – an international partnership based in Belgium - was created in 1990 to start a pan-European project for the interoperability of cash dispensing machines. A company called SEINCA (1988-93) was created to articulate this collaboration by bringing together 68 savings banks in Spain, CECA, IPARCRI and two technology partners namely, Ibermatica (a company financed by the Spanish savings banks) and ERITEL (a joint venture between Ibermatica and the Spanish telephone company).75 It is a task of future research to document this collaboration at pan-European level in greater detail.
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NOTES
1
For an alternative view see Langlois, (2003; 2007).
2
BPP, 1893-94: First Annual Report of the Proceedings of the Inspection Committee of TSB.
3
TSB Inspectors Committee Report No. 73 (1965), paragraph 30.
4
The TSB Trust Company was established in 1967 and a year later the first unit trust issue was offered (Pringle, 1973: 23 and 95).
5
Customers of TSB could also withdraw from branches other than their own but then the passbook would be withheld and posted through internal mail to the customer’s branch, where it was updated and return to the customer at his/her next visit (McQuade, 06/Mar/2008).
6
Anonymous (1950) ‘Direct Transfer Schemes at Sheffield’, TSB Gazette vol. XX no. 2 (Apr), pp. 7.
7
Idem.
8
C.R. Stiles (1957) ‘Mechanisation’, TSB Gazette vol. XXVII no. 3 (Jun), pp. 99-105.
9
Unless otherwise stated this paragraph borrows freely from H.L. W. (1954) ‘A clearing house for trustee savings banks’, TSB Gazette vol. XXIV no. 1 (Jan), pp. 6-9.
10
Participating banks included Wessex, Oxford, Surrey, Thames Valley, Portsmouth and South Eastern.
11
Offering traveller cheques and foreign currency for depositors was offered from 1965 onwards along side other changes introduced by the Trustee Savings Bank Act 1964, namely the payment of periodical charges, household bills, travel draft, current account, inter-bank and credit transfer schemes. See TSB Inspectors Committee No. 73 (1965), paragraph 30.
12
Unless otherwise stated this paragraph borrows freely from Neal (16 March 2008).
13
Unless otherwise stated this paragraph borrows freely from Whitmore (08 February 2008).
14
J.W. (1948) ‘That Overcrowded Counter’, TSB Gazette vol. XVIII no. 1 (Jan), pp. 4-9.
15 Idem, p. 5. 16 Ibid. 17 Idem, p. 9. 18
Anonymous (1949) ‘Mobile Savings Banks’, TSB Gazette vol. XIX no. 3 (Jul), pp. 29-32.
19
Anonymous (1948) ‘National Savings Centres and Trustees Savings Banks’, TSB Gazette vol. XVIII no. 3 (Jul), pp. 12-13.
20
At the end of 1949 there were still at least 30 urban districts and county boroughs with 40,000 or more inhabitants without a savings bank retail branch (TSB Gazette vol. XX no. 2 (Apr), pp. 1-5.)
21
‘Opening of the 1500th Branch’, TSB Gazette vol. XXXIV no. 4 (Oct), p. 159-60.
22
H.R.J. (1948) ‘The New Branch’, TSB Gazette vol. XIX no. 3 (Jul), pp. 7-10.
23
‘News from the Banks: West Midland’, TSB Gazette vol. XXXIV no. 4 (Oct), p. 158.
24