Tellers have far more uses than that including answering questions that a computer isn't capable of answering as well as a human.
That's why I've left live chat in. You just don't need branches with tellers inside.
You assume that I have a computer. Many poor people do not have computers but still have bank accounts. This is an error.
Or for performing tasks not associated with dispensing money.
What do you have in mind?
My account has been hacked into. I can't get online with my password anymore and my debit card has been locked due to having all the money in my account taken out too quickly. Please help.
Plus, as much as I love technology, having technology run our lives instead of other people doesn't seem like a good idea.
No one's talking about technology running our lives. It would run them to the exact same extent it is right now.
Incorrect.
When you remove a job from a human and give it to a computer, the skills and knowledge of how to perform that job can become lost. So in the event of a power outage, you can't get any money from the bank. Or perform any kind of transactions.
Besides, the physical cash needs to be stored somewhere as well as paper records of the accounts.
We don't need any of that.
....
Ok. So when the bank get's hacked and it's accounts wiped, I guess all that money you saved up for your kid's college education isn't important to you. Good to know.
Fact is, machines break down. Systems break down. An internet cable get's cut or the main data link server dies. Whatever the case. If you don't have a paper record, the system becomes worthless. Here's a true story:
A War Vet and his daughter go into a vet hospital for treatment after heart surgery. It was a standard follow up procedure, nothing major.
He walks in, tells the woman at the desk why he's here and the woman replies: "I'm sorry, I can't do anything. The system is down so we can't access your medical records."
He told them again why he was here.
The response was something like "We can't perform any procedure on you without verifying your medical history".
This is a very fair and correct procedure. Never perform any medical procedure without knowing what was done before and don't always trust the patient to remember the details.
So the procedure he needed to get was denied because the system was down and their paper trail was down in archives and would take hours if not days to get out.
Now I'm not saying that an electronic database isn't worth having, but if you don't have a backup that doesn't rely on the primary system then you have nothing worth keeping.