Barclays vs Bitcoin — My experience of transferring money
Let me demonstrate just how DIFFICULT a big bank can be for consumers to send money and how Bitcoin outshines it.
I live in London, UK. Not long ago, I needed to make an online purchase in US dollars (USD). My US trading account doesn’t allow me to make purchases so I decided to transfer the money to a UK bank account where I could do so. I wanted to keep the amount in USD rather than exchange it for British pounds, so I decided to look at my options.
My bank at the time, Smile, did not offer USD accounts. Private banks weren’t interested in my cash because the amount in question was too small for them. The best option was to open a USD bank account in the UK with Barclays bank.
I have never been a fan of Barclays. As a teenager, I remember seeing the ridiculously long queues that snaked almost out of the branch doors in their Whitechapel and Woolwich branches. I also remember examining, as a prospective college student, how uncompetitive the Barclays student account was.
Nonetheless, at this point, Barclays had the best USD account features available to me, and it had a new branch within walking distance of my home. Even in this digital era, I knew a local branch would be a valuable feature because the bank would require the physical presentation of identity and address documentation.
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I made an appointment to open a USD account in my local branch. I attended the meeting and supplied the necessary paperwork. A week later, Barclays wrote to me to confirm that it would open accounts for me in the next few days. I say ‘accounts’ because to open a USD account I was required to open a Current account as well.
After funding my account and signing up to mobile banking, I was ready to make a transfer!
Anticipating a quick and easy win, I logged into the mobile app and tried to make a transfer, only to see the error message:
“Sorry, transfers from international accounts are not currently allowed within the app”.
I felt disappointed: ‘Why would you not allow me to make international transfers?’
The struggle
I then logged into my Barclays account through a desktop browser to make a transfer. I received an error message saying that I can’t transfer USD online because I need to order a physical authentication device to authenticate my transaction.
At this point, I was getting wound up. If using a physical authentication device to authenticate transactions is essential why wasn’t this sent to me when the account was set up? I then ordered the device, and was told that this will take five working days to arrive! Five working days is a long time to wait for something that should have been sent to me already.
I then decided to call Barclays and make the transfer via their telephone banking service. I called Barclays and spoke to a customer service advisor who informed me that transfers from USD accounts could not be carried out over the telephone 🤷🏾♂️. He explained that I have to go into the branch to do this.
I needed to make this USD transfer so I continued…
That day I was in Angel, central London, visiting a fintech company, so I looked up the closest Barclays branch, and popped in.
The setup in the branch was unusual for me, a digital-only kind of banking customer. Once you enter the bank a customer service advisor with a tablet asks everyone in the queue how he can help only to politely let them down and say: “sorry, yes you need to queue up for that.”
At this point, my annoyance began to transform into contempt. I knew it was not helpful to feel this way, so I redirected my energy to making this transfer happen in the quickest most straightforward manner.
When the customer service advisor finally got to me, he told me that I need to join a separate queue to see someone in a cubicle who can handle my type of transaction — which is merely transferring money from my bank account!
The wait is long. After 20 minutes my back begins to hurt and my patience is running low.
Within this bank branch, there are two machines against the back wall which are supposed to perform the role of the human cashier. One of them says ‘Out of service. We are sorry this machine is temporarily out of order. The screen is currently disabled.’
The other machine can’t handle transactions in USD.
Eventually, I got to see a Barclays customer service advisor, Angie.
‘I’m now feeling buoyed’.
She was a pleasant young lady who, from her body language and bloodshot eyes, was tired at the end of this Friday evening; nonetheless, I was confident she could help me. I was glad that I finally got to see someone that could help solve my problem of transferring money abroad.
I explained my situation to her clearly and precisely. I presented my passport, driving license, Barclays letter as proof of address, and the required passcode. Angie then explained to me that these documents were not enough, and I needed the bank card of my Barclays Current account to verify my identity.
‘What garbage is she talking about!?’ is the first thing that came to mind.
‘I have a passport and driving license yet they aren’t good enough to verify my identity? Identity documents issued by the State?’.
This episode felt like the twisted version of a joke.
Luckily, I searched for and found my bank card, which I’d accidentally brought with me. We proceeded with the transfer, but, for some unknown reason, Angie’s computer won’t accept the bank transfer. Angie called her manager who performed an authorisation before the transfer finally occurred. Success! Although, I’d have to wait until Monday morning to receive confirmation.
On Monday, I received confirmation that the bank transfer had been accepted and would be performed later on that day.
Conclusion
Transferring a foreign currency with Barclays bank is ridiculously painful. The reason is that their processes are overly complex and not customer-centric.
An example of this is the way Barclays wouldn’t allow me to transfer money from my USD account on the telephone or via mobile banking but only via a face to face setting.
There are use cases where Bitcoin is currently not a good solution — for example sending money to a developing African nation where the recipient can use it to buy food.
However, transferring a store of value — money — is one area where Bitcoin works particularly well and banks don’t.
Bitcoin wallets require no application forms to be completed or assessed, and users don’t require the permission of a third party (your bank) to send a store of value. The only ingredients needed to send Bitcoins are simple software that lives on your iPhone and a few seconds of your time.
When we add exchanges to the mix, users can exchange their Bitcoin for any other store of value such as US dollars.
In some parts of the world, users can use their Bitcoins with retailers in exchange for goods and services.
Also, using a Bitcoin wallet to transfer Bitcoins is, in most circumstances, much cheaper than using a bank to transfer money and much quicker.
Bitcoin has a lot of obstacles to overcome before society widely uses it, but the fiat based competition, have left the game wide open for better alternatives to arise.
