...and you can’t bank on their websites either

AS A creature of habit, I have long valued the visit to the NatWest bank branch nearest to the Daily Mail’s office in South-West London.

The well-informed, helpful counter staff were under instruction to guide me towards online banking and the NatWest app but, valuing the personal touch, I was resistant to it.

Lockdown with a vulnerable spouse changed all that and I have shifted to online payments and transactions. That is just as well since many of the branches seem almost permanently shuttered.

Online is fine when the system is working, in spite of the continuous addition of new security checks that, among other things, requires you to have a fully-charged mobile device for receipt of the top-secret pin.

But trying to access NatWest online over a weekend is as hard as finding an open branch near where you live at any time. The system is slow and clunky. There is time for a tea break waiting for your latest statement to come up. Then, when you try to make a payment for routine household services, the system has timed out and one has to start all over again.

The frustration might not be quite as great if NatWest was proving itself to be a ‘can do’ back-to-work company.

Its newish chief executive, Alison Rose, seems to think it is fine for everyone to work from home until January 2021.

Never mind the semi-closed branches, the dysfunctional IT or the disastrous impact which working from home has on High Streets and sole traders. Doubtless, the IT engineers are working flat out.

But for new converts to digital banking it is not good enough.