Can you think of any reason why we can't have full service banking 7 days a week?

You think the banks are charging fees now for debit and other bank services?

Open 7 days a week and they will charge us $5 just write a check to cover their employees salary for that xtra day.

Sounds good, but I am trying to get use to a new 50 cent stamp coming out very soon.

Bank Atlantic in FL used to have 7 day banking, I assume they still do. All my banks I used previous to where I live now at least were open on Saturdays. My bank here in TN is only M-F and yesterday, Friday, I realized I need to get something from the bank before Tuesday, and Monday is a bank holiday, so basically I am screwed. I am so pissed about it.

I think bankers hours, and days for that matter, are just tradition. Probably the bulk of their business is from businesses, so normal people with a bank account aren’t catered to as much.

I just checked, looks like Bank Atlantic is still 7 days a week. See the bottom right where it says “Want More Information?”

Okay, here is a real example in my city. A new bank opened and stated they were open 7 days a week. This lasted about 8 months, when all of a sudden they turned off their open 7 days a week sign and it is no more. Why, I asked? The manager of The Green Bank stated that there were not enough customers to justify staying open on Sunday.

I don’t think we’d have that problem in NYC, but now I’m just speculating.

Lots of grocery stores in my area (Chicago) have bank branches with Sunday hours.

But the stand-alone banks have very short hours on Saturday (typically 9am-1pm) and no Sunday hours.

But let’s say you deposit a check on Friday afternoon. Do the banks that have Saturday and Sunday hours work toward clearing checks on one’s account? Or is that just a M-F thing? Couldn’t the computers work on Saturday nights?

I vaguely remember in NYC, or maybe Long Island? Banks open Sunday. In areas that had high numbers of observant Jews. I could be wrong.

Could the tradition of no banking on Sunday’s be related to blue laws of some sort?

Smaller local banks probably just want to give employees a day off.

My husband’s bank just decided to not be open on Saturdays at some branches because there was not enough business to justify it, so @john65pennington probably is correct about Sunday banking for some of the banks. There might be many different reasons a particular bank is not open Sundays though.

I actually think the check clearing, money movement thing might only be M-F no matter whether the bank is open or not. Not sure. My husband’s bank only moves money M-F, but he is not sure if it is law, or his bank. When someone does a wire transfer I am pretty sure it has to happen when the federal reserve is open. We need a banker on the Q. My husband works for a bank, but he is HR, so he does not know everything that governs these things.

Well obviously money can be moved around on Sunday. My debit card has no problem deducting from my account purchases that I make over the weekend. Isn’t this an unfair and one sided system? They can deduct money, but I can’t get a check to clear.

@zigmund: Your bank’s fees were clearly stated when you opened the account, BUT I’m also sure there was something in the small print that said something like “fees subject to change.” As far as your most previous post about your debit card deducting from your account over th weekend but you can’t clear a check, you can bet that the powerful banking industry is going to be one-sided, and the side that will usually benefit will be them. There was something on The Today Show recently that said that the contract that comes with credit cards, was so confusing that even teams of lawyers and politicians could not figure it out.

And if my bank’s fees change and I didn’t think I could afford them, I would most likely move to a credit union. (Which I should probably do anyway.)
I don’t have credit cards, because I don’t believe in personal debt. But a check is my money. And I don’t think it’s fair that I have to wait three (or four in the case of this Monday’s holiday) to get it, because of antiquated religious laws or poor business practices. I’d gladly pay a bit extra for a banking system that works to get money into their customer’s accounts 24/7.

@zigmund: I understand your point. The only thing I disagree with is when you said a check is your money. It’s not your money until it clears from the bank that it’s paid from.

And good service would be a system that expedites that, not does nothing two sevenths of each week. I guess what I’m really asking is wouldn’t customers like better service that is caught up with the way we live our lives, now?

@zigmund Good point about the debit card. Here are my thoughts. One, I definitely think many of the banking rules are total bullshit and onesided so they can hold onto your money longer. Now, with debit cards, I think there is money that is on hold, but possibly not actually taken from the account yet, like a temporary amount reducing your balance, not actually gone from the account. I think they do it with hotels and gas pumps, set aside maybe $300 at a hotel, but then at the end of the stay only your true bill amount is subtracted. I don’t know exactly how it works, but I know there have been big complaints and frustration over it.

When I worked in retail, the charge amount was charged right away, but if we voided the transaction right away because we made a mistake, it did not immediately come off the card. Our Venezuelan customers by their laws could only charge a certain amount per day, and if we screwed it up, they could not buy anything else that day.

All sorts of seeming unfairness in the system.

The laws are probably to ensure the bank cannot hold onto your money for an extended period, but with computers now, it probably all happens much faster than what the laws allow for. Not sure if the laws still are different for in state and out of state checks clearing? That really seems like total ridiculousness with everything computerized now.

Doesn’t it?

@zigmund I think brick and mortar is being replaced somewhat by online banking so the banks have less incentive to build branches and have long hours. But, I do think there is still a niche for it. The bank in FL I mentioned probably has a huge percentage of clients who are over 65, they would be very reluctant to online bank. There also is a decent size of observant Jews for that matter in south east FL, but that would not be near as significant as the older population I mentioned. I wish my bank was open 7 days a week. I do not use a debit cards at all nor ATM cards.

Just a note about the check clearing – this means you would have to get the Federal Reserve to work weekends and holidays. While a good chunk of check clearing is automated, and I agree that it seems like it should happen, until you can get the Fed to change, the banks aren’t going to change.

The bank I used to work for was open 7 days a week, 9AM to 7PM Monday through Saturday and noon to 5PM on Sunday. I believe they shortened the Saturday and Sunday hours because there was next to no customer traffic. I can remember Saturdays from 2PM to 7PM that were horrendously boring. There were some Sundays that we could have just not come in. And this was before internet access… the horror of it! We were also closed only on Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. The other federal holidays we were open from 9AM to 5PM. Try making that schedule. It still makes me shudder. One thing I did like though, was being able to tell the customer, yes, we can do your loan closing at 4PM on a Saturday. I did several loan closings at those times.

What market was this? Large city or rural burg?

Doesn’t what?

I don’t see what the necessity is. Before ATMs you had to get your cash on Friday, and when banks closed at 3 in the afternoon you had to make a point of going early. Things go pretty well right now.

Why do we need banks open on Sundays?

With computers doing everything, I don’t see why it can’t be done.

@zenvelo The same could be said for any service. We may not need it on a Sunday, but it sure would make life more convenient.

@zenvelo For people who have safety deposit boxes it is nice to have more access.

If a branch of your bank is not near your job it is nice to have the weekend option. If there is one by your job, but you don’t want to eat up your lunch hour going to the bank it is nice to have weekend hours. For some people it is very hard to get away during work to run an errand.

Banks that are not open late nor on weekends? I find it awful when all banking options in a community have this schedule. Luckily that is not the case usually, usually there are some banks that are at least open Saturdays, or until 6:00 at least one night during the week, but 6:00 is not very late. But then, I am disgusted for so many years it was impossible to get an appointment with a doctor on a weekend or in the evening. At least now there are more urgent cares popping up so there is an alternative to going to the ER. On the other extreme, I think it is horrific retail now asks employees to work overnight on Black Friday, and other extremely extended hours during various times of the year, so I guess I am hard to please.

We will see them opened less before we see them opened more.

I’d actually like to see fewer businesses open all 7 days. Like mine.

I can bank 24/7 with net banking. I don’t see what you mean. Oh.. you’re talking about ‘checks’... They haven’t used checks or cheques in Norway for over a decade now I think.

So perhaps it is the archaic systems you use that keep the banking behind. It’s not that great here, because when you do your transaction, the bank seems to clear it when they feel like it and it can take 3 days and that pisses me off. In New Zealand, they had same day banking in the 90’s, and then it became immediate transactions if was among the same banking ‘group’ but same day for the rest of the transactions. I thought Norway would be more advanced than New Zealand, but turns out it isn’t.

I imagine that Sundays have something to do with it. With tons of people going to church on Sunday, there wouldn’t be much business, plus it’s kind of a family shop kind of day. People tend to spend more money on weekends and therefore aren’t paying much attention to banks. That’s my two cents on it anyhow.

I have wondered for SO LONG why places like banks don’t stagger their working shifts so that some people work M-F, others work W-S, for example. And I’ve also wondered why employers are such jerks about employees going to places like banks during the day. When else are you going to go?! It isn’t always possible to go on a weekend.

There is a regional bank with certain branches in my area that are open 7 days, with shorter hours on Sunday. The branches are in or on the outskirts of a city with about 550,000 people.

@zigmund – I’m not sure if your market question was directed to me or not, but this particular bank was in 24 states (at the time, could be more now) and located in all sized markets from the rural-ish WalMart to grocery stores in large cities.

As far as cashing a check, if you have the money in your account, you can cash the check immediately. Otherwise, (at least with the bank I use) they’ll cash up to $100 immediately and the rest has to sit there and wait to clear.

I remember not too long ago when the bank closed every day at 3 pm. Now there are later hours and a few nights they’re open later, plus half day on Saturdays. I think that’s the best we’re going to get now, with the majority of people having internet access and ATM’s.

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Wow, long thread, but here’s my two cents (pun intended):

After working in retail stores (don’t know about banks), the most requested off day has always been Sunday. I work at JoAnn Fabrics right now, and apparently my store right now will not even hire you unless you’re available during Sunday mornings because so many people were requesting it off. I’m sure if they could find workers and managers to be open, then it wouldn’t be a problem, but I know a lot of businesses want to allow their employees to be able to have Sunday off.

But like I said, I’m not sure about banks specifically.

As a culture, though, here in atheist and socialist Norway, our retail stores are closed on Sundays, all day. A few, small, selected grocery stores are open and there are a few speciality stores located in tiny, historic areas of our city, where they can open on Sundays, but not before noon. This is generally for the tourists. We can’t buy alcohol on a Sunday, unless we are dining in a restaurant and consume it there. During December, for Christmas shopping, is the only time you find stores open on Sundays here.

Our banks’ physical locations are closed Saturday and Sunday and I believe they are only open until 3 or 4 pm during the day. ‘Bankers hours’ is synonymous with ‘not working much’.