I opened my first bank account when I was ten days old. I still have the receipt.
Obviously it wasn't me who marched into the Post Office in Croxley Green and deposited a tenner, I presume it was a parent, but I thank them for starting me on the savings path early. They also bought me my first Premium Bond at the same time, just the £1 but it would repay the investment with a £50 prize thirty years later so even more thanks for that.
My Post Office Savings Bank Book arrived shortly afterwards. It had a blue cover and several pages within, all chopped at the top so my name and address on the inside cover was always legible. Each double page had space for eight transactions - deposits on the left and withdrawals on the right - with eight separate spaces for the obligatory date stamp. Everything came with datestamps in those days, rotated every morning by the clerk and pressed firmly onto an inky pad before jabbing down onto the page.
So began a series of deposits, dutifully transcribed. When I got some money as a gift, say for a birthday, I'd troop up the road to the post office and hand it over, receiving a handwritten line in my book in return. The biggest deposit I ever made was after my grandmother died and left me a three figure sum - unimaginable wealth for a nine year-old! Occasionally I took money out but mainly this was a savings account, set up so that a tiny nestegg could accumulate as I grew.
After sixth form I got a summer job doing routine things in a warehouse in Harlesden, and needed somewhere better to put the money. I thus opened my second bank account when I was eighteen years old. I still have the letter.
It took a while to set things up because the first time I applied they thought I was under 18 and refused to progress the application further. I had to contact someone in Bootle to move things along, and by the time the acceptance letter arrived I'd already been paid. It seems amazing these days how much was done by post but the post was so much more reliable in those days, indeed I received the introductory letter the day after they sent it. I can still recite the account number off by heart.
Girobank was also operated by the General Post Office, commencing operations in 1968 and unique at the time for being fully computerised. Initially it made a trading loss but by the time I joined in the 1980s it was well on its way to becoming Britain's sixth biggest bank. It operated mostly via cheques and post office counters, and much use was made of white Postage Paid envelopes - every Girobank member had a stash. The Bootle address alas no longer exists, the former HQ having been demolished in 2024.
I sent off my first pay cheque by return of post and was soon in credit to the tune of £144.42. The bank's second letter thanked me for my deposit and enclosed a Girobank card which would allow me "to cash cheques up to £50 every other working day at either of the two post offices shown on the card". There were no cashpoints for Girobank members in those days, instead I had to write myself a cheque, and I see from the stubs in my cheque book that these were usually for £25 and comprised roughly half of all the cheques I wrote. Meanwhile cheque number 18 paid the deposit on a canal holiday (£26.00), cheque 23 paid for university accommodation (£238.37) and cheque 68 paid London Transport for three all-stations tickets (£36).
I opened my third bank account when I was twenty-three years old. I've still got the opening statement.
I'd recently started my first full-time job and was eyeing up a better rate of interest. I'd had an Abbey National savings account for some time but this was an opportunity to open a current account with them too. That meant I could transfer money from one to the other as necessary, and hopefully build up enough reserves to be able to afford a mortgage one day. The interest rate was 12% back then so mortgages were scary, but equally savings would ramp up very quickly so it paid to stash cash away.
On that day in October 1988 I walked into Windsor town centre wearing my finest pair of white trousers, and was aghast on Clarence Road when a dog called Snoopy leapt up and muddied them with his paws. I entered Abbey National somewhat abashed and waited quite a long time while they opened my bank account and linked it to those I already had, then celebrated by going shopping in Reading. My opening deposit was £10, which by Christmas had edged up to £10.05 thanks to a smidgeon of interest, but the account really came into its own when the first pay cheque arrived (£633.32). A house would follow three years later.
I upgraded to the Abbey National Telephone Banking Service in June 1999. I still have the letter but I won't burden you with it. I wrote my very last cheque on 3rd January 2006 to pay an insurance bill, having only written three in the previous two years. I upgraded to online banking in March 2012, a change triggered by the sending of two letters containing separate verification codes. I still haven't upgraded to mobile banking because I'd rather not carry the key to my savings everywhere I go. I get far far fewer letters than I used to, which is very much how the bank likes it.
And during this period AbbeyNational evolved until it wasn't Abbey National any more. They demutualised in July 1989, the first UK building society to take the private plunge. Alas I decided to sell my £130 allocation of shares straight away, making a profit of 70p, whereas I could have got ten times that if I'd hung onto them until 2000 (after which consumer confidence stuttered somewhat). The company rebranded as just 'abbey' in 2003, lower case, the logo written in a variety of jaunty colours. Then in November 2004 Abbey National was acquired by Banco Santander, Spain's largest bank, and so began the slow crawl to elimination.
They got rid of the jaunty colours and switched the bank's logo to the parent company's flame. Then on 10th January 2010 they ditched the Abbey name altogether and switched everything over to Santander. That same year Bradford and Bingley and Alliance & Leicester were swallowed up, both former building societies that overstretched, and today they're all lost within the embrace of a foreign institution with firmer foundations. I don't think the switch to Santander counts as my fourth bank account, but yes I have the letter anyway.
I have financial inertia so have essentially stuck with the same bank for over 35 years, despite the fact it may not necessarily be the best fit for my money. I like the fact I know how their systems work, also that there's still a branch within walking distance, also that they've never forced me to use some ridiculous electronic gizmo in order to access my money. I should probably hunt down the best deal and open a fourth bank account anyway, maybe even a fifth in a year's time to keep on top of the best rates of interest, but my dislike of faff has kept me loyal to a bank that's not even called what it used to be.
I kept my Girobank account open until 30th October 2000, barely ticking over, then transferred my last funds across to Abbey National. By that time Girobank had been part of Alliance & Leicester for over ten years, the Thatcher government being unable to hold onto any national asset without selling it off. And Alliance & Leicester was of course also swallowed by Santander after the financial crash, thus it turns out the destinies of both Abbey National and Girobank were ultimately the same. No matter which bank account I'd kept open everything ultimately ended up on the north coast of Spain, and all because bank bosses are keener on switching banks than I am.
