Alan remembers his time working for a high street bank in Norwich from 1982 to 1999, much of it before the digital revolution.
Early days
I left school after my ‘A’ levels, about a month short of my 18th birthday. I envisaged working in finance, as it was something I was interested in. The main players in Norwich at the time were either Norwich Union or the high street banks. I applied to Norwich Union, but didn’t get invited for an interview. I also applied to National Westminster Bank (NatWest Bank). I was interviewed twice by them, and got the job. I think there were about six branches in Norwich at the time, the smallest one on Magdalen Street near the flyover; that was the branch where I started working in mid-July 1982.
The Magdalen Street branch had around 10 full-time staff, and one part-time lady who came in two or three days a week. It was a convenient branch for me because I could get there by bike every day, about a 3-mile ride from home. The branch’s staffing structure included a manager and a sub-manager, and the rest were clerical staff. The clerical staff were graded from one to four; one was the most junior and four the most senior clerical grade before becoming sub-manager or manager. Obviously, I started at grade one. Of course, we also had cashiers; I remember there were three tills and an enquiries desk. Unlike today, it wasn’t open plan; both the cashiers’ tills and the enquiries desk were behind a glass screen.
At all branches at that time, all back-office functions were done within each branch. That included things like opening and closing accounts; changing customers’ addresses; setting up, changing or cancelling standing orders; ordering foreign currency for customers going on holiday; and looking after self-custody items (things customers deposited with the bank to keep them secure, like jewellery or wills).
On my first day at the bank, I remember calling back ‘Section One’. Section One was all that day’s in-debit clearing (all the cheques customers of our branch had drawn to be debited to their accounts on that day). They came delivered to us from Head Office very early in the morning, along with a big printout listing all the amounts of every single cheque to be processed through customers’ accounts that morning. Another member of staff and I sat there and literally had to read out, one person to the other, the amounts written on every single cheque and tick them off against the big printout. We also had to make sure every cheque was signed, and that no cheque was post-dated.
One computer for everything
Today, everyone in the office has a computer, but in 1982 we had just one big computer for the whole branch. It was akin to a mainframe computer; a bit like a typewriter, but one at which you sat as though it was a desk. There was a very big roll of paper continually feeding through this computer. The work to process all of that day’s work – everything that came in across the cashiers’ counters, people paying in cheques or withdrawing cash, all the account opening functions I mentioned – went through this one computer.
Every back-office function was input into this computer via someone, such as the records clerk or the standing orders clerk, filling in a pre-printed form with the information that had to be keyed into the computer.
For example, if someone wrote us a letter, as people tended to do in those days, saying their address was going to change, the records clerk would write down the new address on a pre-printed form and pass it to one of the juniors like me to key in the new address on the computer. It would then be printed out, and the following day the information would be checked back to the original source – the customer’s letter – and to the printout to make sure it had been correctly entered on both the form and the computer. And that was how a banking branch worked in the early 1980s.
We quickly got used to a lot of jargon. We called cheques REMs (short for remittances). The other half of the equation, the credit half, we called giros or CTs (short for credit transfers). Every day, all the REMs and CTs had to be keyed into a machine specifically designed to add up the total of that day’s remittances and credits, and then the totals generated by this machine were checked against the totals generated by the big computer.
We had to make sure the two totals agreed with each other at the end of the day. If they didn’t, then obviously there’d been a mistake somewhere, and we had to find and correct the mistake before anyone could go home. Mistakes didn’t happen very often, because we all knew that if we weren’t careful enough to key all these amounts accurately, then we wouldn’t be going home very soon, and that wasn’t what we wanted to happen!
Codes for everything
In the 1980s the dress code for male members of bank staff was a suit and tie; it was the first time I’d bought a suit. Female staff also had to dress neatly. I have a feeling they probably weren’t allowed to wear trousers; it had to be skirts and dresses. About two-thirds of the staff in my branch were female. The men included the manager, the sub-manager and a couple of others.
The early 1980s was well before internet times, so there was no ability for customers to tap a few numbers on a digital device and find out their bank balance for themselves. They had to either come into or phone a branch and ask us to find it for them. For example, if a customer came to the cashier’s till and asked, ‘Can you please find out my balance?’, the staff member would phone through to the back office and say, ‘Can you do an 808 please on… (the customer’s account number)?’. An ‘808’ was a 3-digit code we had to key into our branch computer, which then generated a specific piece of information. The 808 was the overnight cleared balance (the balance at the end of the previous day, before the current day’s transactions were taken into account), and that would be the one we would give the customer.
There was a long list of these 3-digit codes, and I think they all started with an 8. For example, an ‘809’ would give you both the overnight cleared balance, an update on the current morning’s balance (cheques that had come through the clearing system that morning) and an uncleared balance, taking into account a 3-day cheque clearance cycle.
Remember, because there was only one computer in the branch, even the manager in his little room did not have a computer sitting on his desk. So, if he was arranging a meeting with a customer, he had to get any information he wanted in front of him about that customer beforehand.
A common enquiry from the manager would be for an ’836’, which gave him everything on an ‘809’ plus a summary of the last few months’ activity on that customer’s account: the highest and lowest balances, the turnover through the account (the total volume of transactions) and what the charges may have been. Other codes we used a lot included an ‘833’, which produced a list of the customer’s standing orders and direct debits, and an ‘821’, which was about cheque guarantee cards – something else that has fallen by the wayside. A lot of numbers, but because we were using them all day long, every day, we all became very familiar with them very quickly. I think the fact that I can remember all these codes forty-plus years later tells you how deeply ingrained they became in my mind!
Balancing the till
At the end of each day, the cash in the branch’s three tills had to be counted up, and the total checked to our cash book. The cash book, A3 sized, was maintained by our chief cashier – the most experienced cashier. It included the amounts of cash in the tills and in the safe. Occasionally the manager, sub-manager or both would do their own random spot check. They would count for themselves the amounts of cash in the tills and the safe, and check that back to the cash book.
Inspections
Checking actually makes me think of the branch inspectors, who also came at random from time to time. It was something we never looked forward to, but it had to happen. At the time, the bank had a number of branch inspectors. Their names were all listed in a book kept within the branch. When they came in unannounced, they would have identity cards with them; we would have to check these with the book we kept in the branch, to make sure they were genuine bank staff.
They inspected all our processes from top to bottom, to make sure we were doing everything in accordance with the bank’s procedures and instructions. I can’t remember how often they came in, but they were with us for perhaps two, three, maybe even four or five days at a time, and they probably came in pairs. When they’d gone, there was a big sigh of relief; if we’d passed, all well and good, and we knew we’d be safe from them coming again for a good while.
Record keeping cards and plates
For customer records, we used the Kardex system. This system used cards around four to five inches by two to three inches, one card for each account we held. At the bottom of the card was the account number, typed in red ink, and alongside it in black ink was the customer’s name, address and signature (taken when the account was opened), and the date the account was opened. If a customer had more than one account, they had more than one card. For example, if a married couple had a joint account, they would have one card for that; if each party had their own sole account, they would have a separate card for each of those as well.
The cards were all arranged in filing cabinets such that the only visible part of the card was that bottom strip with the red account number and name. That meant you could quickly flick through the cards, turn up the one you wanted and take it out of the filing cabinet when you needed to, for example to use it to check a signature on another document.
The expectation was that the cashiers, particularly the chief cashier, would know every customer’s signature. The chief cashier was expected to recognise if a cheque came across the counter purporting to be signed by a particular customer, but the signature looked a bit off. I can’t remember how many customers we had at the time, but it would have been many hundreds. Surprisingly enough, because we were looking at these records and signatures all day, every day, we soon became familiar with them.
The Bradma machine
As well as a card, every account also had a small, embossed metal plate with the customer’s account number and name on it. We used these to produce the branch’s cheque books. At the time, cheque books were produced in each individual branch; there was none of this centralised processing of cheque books. A customer could come into the branch and say, ‘I’m just about out of cheques, can I have a new cheque book, please?’, and we could produce one then and there within five minutes.
We personalised cheque books with a machine called the ‘Bradma’. The machine is an example of something that today would get nowhere near passing health and safety! We had to slot the embossed metal plate into the machine, take a blank cheque book from the safe and put it into the machine, then literally hammer down the metal plate onto each individual cheque within the cheque book. This meant the account number and name were printed on each cheque with metallic ink, via a metallic ink reservoir within the machine.
So, with one hand we were hammering down the metal plate, and with the other we were flicking over each cheque. You can imagine that, from a health and safety point of view, every time you hammered down with one hand, the thumb on your other hand was at risk of getting squashed by the metal plate! There were one or two occasions when I ended up with a bruised thumb, but with practice we got into a routine and knew how quickly we could safely flick over the cheques to avoid hitting our thumbs!
The machine was also quite noisy, because it made a bang every time you printed a cheque. Amazingly enough, the machine at the Magdalen Street branch in the early 1980s was situated right outside the manager’s office; perhaps it was the only place it could go.
Handling cash
We had two safes in the branch, the book safe and the cash safe. The cash safe was under dual control. How much cash we’d have had in the branch at any given time has faded from my memory, but in terms of cash coming across the counter, Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays were the three busiest days of the week.
One of our customers was Fine Fare supermarket (long since gone) in Anglia Square. At that time, shoppers would generally pay with cash, so big supermarkets like Fine Fare needed a lot of loose coins to give as change to customers. Fine Fare staff would come into the branch on a regular basis to swap their notes for coins in small denominations (and then take the coins away in a supermarket trolley) so they had enough change for the coming week.
We didn’t keep any foreign currency on the premises. If a customer was going on holiday and wanted foreign currency, we had to order it for them and they would come back in a couple of days to collect it.
The cash safe was right at the back of the building. Next door to it was the book safe, where we kept all the paperwork. This included the previous days’ computer printouts, our stock of blank cheque books, our security ledgers and our safe custody ledgers. As I remember, the book safe was in quite a small room, full of boxes and boxes of paper. Again, from a health and safety point of view, it was probably a fire risk, particularly as during the working day the door to the book safe was kept unlocked. I’m pretty certain the cash safe was kept locked all day.
Career progress
I spent about three years at the Magdalen Street branch, so this gets us up to about 1985. I was then, quite unusually I think, offered a choice of where to go next – either to Diss or to Norwich, London Street. The Diss branch was of comparable size to Magdalen Street, and apart from the travelling involved I felt this wasn’t really a progressive option. London Street, on the other hand, was the biggest branch in the city; remember that at this time there were still about half a dozen NatWest branches in Norwich city centre. This was the obvious choice, as there was going to be a lot more opportunities for me to progress my career.
During my time at Magdalen Street, I didn’t actually do all the clerical jobs, such as opening and closing customer accounts, but I did at London Street. Right through my banking career, however, I never got involved in foreign transactions. It wasn’t long before I went onto lending money to small businesses, firstly in the role of manager’s assistant. This was based in Lawrence House, our building on Saint Andrews Hill in Norwich. This was a back-office task, specifically designed for the lending function across the branches in Norwich, and my role was essentially to keep the paperwork going for our small business customers.
My manager did the interviewing of the customers; he would take notes of actions to be taken, such as allowing a customer an overdraft for a specified amount over a specified period of time, and charging the customer a specified fee for arranging it. Then, as his assistant, I would process all that paperwork through the systems used to enact the overdraft, take the fee and make sure it was done for the customer to time, in good order and accurately.
I was lucky to work with a very personable manager, even though we had a difference of opinion as to which football team we supported! Somehow we cut through that, and I think we got on well, liked each other and worked well as a team.
Working at a regional level
I moved from my role as a manager’s assistant to working at our East Anglia Regional Office, based in Norfolk House on Exchange Street, Norwich. This office basically did all the back-office lending functions for the whole of East Anglia, covering all of Norfolk and Suffolk, and I think a little bit of Cambridgeshire.
My role there was to assess and recommend lending decisions for small and medium-sized businesses in the region. To understand this, you need to know about the concept of discretionary power (‘DP’). DP was the amount of money that a branch manager was allowed to lend of his own volition, without having to refer the decision to someone more senior.
For example, a branch manager in a small branch might have had a DP of £50,000, which meant that if a customer came in asking for a loan for that amount, the branch manager could decide whether to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. However, if the customer wanted a loan of £100,000, the manager could not make a decision without getting someone more senior to look at the customer’s application. For that to happen, the branch manager would write a report saying how much the customer was asking for, why, and how they would repay it. The branch manager would then send that report to us at Regional Office. My role would be to assess the application, looking at the pros and cons such as the viability of the business, whether we had sufficient security if something went wrong, and the customer’s track record. I would then put my recommendation, ‘yes’ or ‘no’, to my boss who was a more senior manager within our Regional Office.
Alan in 2005
So, my job then was to act as the intermediary between the branch manager, who was unable to lend on his own account because his DP was not high enough, and our senior branch managers at Regional Office who had a much higher DP and could say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the loan application.
I have always thought of this as being the best job I ever had; I absolutely loved it. I was obviously good at it because we were a fairly small team, probably no more than about 8-10 people assessing these applications and passing them forward. Because there weren’t many of us, we had to be pretty well thought of within the local branch network to be able to take on this job and be offered the role in the first place, so it really was a feather in my cap!
After I’d been there a little while, I got my own DP, which meant that I could agree or decline, as the case may be, to lend to a certain amount of money to small business customers. To my recollection, my DP was around £50,000, so if one of these lending reports came in to me from a branch manager who had a smaller DP than £50,000, I could decide whether or not to lend the money. If I decided ‘no’, then my decision to decline had to be overseen by someone more senior than me.
Training and qualifications
In the mid-1990s I studied for the Associate Chartered Institute of Bankers qualification (ACIB), which I did by correspondence course in my own time. There were round half a dozen modules to the qualification, such as basic accounting and company law, spread over a three-year timetable, leading up to an exam. For part of that time, I was given study leave of half a day a week. After passing the exam, I was entitled to use the letters ACIB after my name, as long as I remained a member of that organisation. I’m sorry to say I allowed my membership to lapse, so strictly speaking I wasn’t entitled to use those letters, but I never let it worry me!
Final years in banking
By around 1996-97, back-office functions were being centralised, so our Regional Office for East Anglia became subsumed into the East of England Regional Office, based in Nottingham. We were given a choice – either move to Nottingham and take our jobs with us, or take something else in Norwich. My decision was to stay in Norwich.
We then had our own ‘mini lending department’ in Norwich, back at Lawrence House where I’d worked before, but things were slightly different. It was still looking at personal customer lending, but semi-automated decision making was now coming in. If your personal customer wanted to borrow some money, details of that customer’s banking history would be put into our very fledgling desktop computer-based system, and a bit of software (a bit like DOS, for those who remember that system) would come out with a lending decision that we could either accept or disagree with. So, this was the beginning of taking away the personal decision-making aspect of lending money.
I also got involved in a new project the bank was testing, to be rolled out right across the country. It was some kind of debt management process, concerned with how to recover the bank’s money from personal customers who, to put it bluntly, we didn’t want to have, because they couldn’t manage their money. We would be bouncing their cheques day after day; they owed us money with no ready means of repaying.
In the late 1990s, NatWest was acquired by the Royal Bank of Scotland, which meant more changes were afoot within the structure of NatWest. In 1999, after 17 and a half years in the banking industry, the offer for a redundancy package was put to me, which I accepted. In 1982, when I first joined the bank, I thought I was going to have a lifetime career, moving up to branch manager. However, time moved on, circumstances and systems changed, and technology came in. By the time I left the banking industry in 1999, I had still never used the internet!
Alan Harper talking to WISEArchive in Norwich on December 3rd 2025.
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