Over the years, technological progress (combined with many other concomitant factors) has inevitably changed the cards on the table for many of the processes we were carrying out until a few years earlier.
One of all is the payment system: in fact, if before cash reigned supreme and unchallenged, nowadays it has been (and is coming) increasingly replaced by alternative and more modern payment systems, represented in this case for example from credit cards, debit cards and anything else you want to say. NFC chips have also made their mark, inserting themselves inside smartphones (especially the latest generation ones), and allowing you to pay quickly and easily with your mobile phone, without even using your physical card.
Unfortunately, progress always brings with it a negative solution to the coin, and over the last few years in particular we have witnessed a real disappearance in the number of ATMs, which are progressively decreasing (especially as regards the Italian territory) and the trend shows no sign of diminishing.
Over the last few years, in fact, we have also witnessed the trend towards an ever-increasing use of the home banking system, which can be easily reached from any device connected to the Internet (notebook, smartphone or tablet), which allows the bank customer in the matter of managing your finances from the comfort of your home, without necessarily having to go to the branch, wasting precious time.
If this does not represent who knows what particular problem for the younger population groups, it is instead a significant problem for older people, who are not very accustomed to using electronic payment systems, and have always been accustomed to daily cash withdrawals .
The current situation
These elderly people will therefore find themselves in serious difficulty in making withdrawals at the counter in their own country, given the progressive closure, and will therefore find themselves forced to travel dozens and dozens of kilometers in search of the ATM closest to them.
To have been most affected by this trend would be Banca Intesa San Paolo, which will close more and more branches during 2023. Nowadays, there are as many as 2,800 Italian municipalities that do not have a bank branch available to which customers can go to carry out your commissions and withdrawals.
We therefore just have to wait for the next few weeks or months to see how the situation will evolve in the future, hoping that there will be an improvement and some position taken by the banks.
