I have banked for several decades with First Direct, a "telephone bank" in the UK which has no physical branches, and is now legally part of HSBC.

When I was a child I lived in a small (but wealthy) village, growing up I remember there were two banks, in small purpose built buildings, plus a post office (operating similar services to a bank) and two building societies (offering mostly savings and mortgages, no current accounts)

By the time I was a teenager, the banks had left, and all that remained was limited services from a "post office" which now had a single counter in a general store, and a Real Estate agent who had taken a weekend course in some basic tasks to operate as an agent of a Building Society with which they had an agreement. This is about the time I needed an actual bank account and I picked First Direct.

A few years after I joined, First Direct made a big deal of their exciting new electronic banking service. Just dial up to the number provided, install their software and conduct several transactions electronically. I never used this service, my family did not own a modem.

But a few years after that, Netscape shipped their SSL feature (today its successor is TLS 1.3) and First Direct began to move towards what we'd consider today an online bank.

I moved to a city to study, and I never left. When I arrived, the city district where I live had all the major high street banks, including one of the building societies (which had since de-mutualised, destroying its social value for a quick money grab) I'd grown up with. Today none are left, although they do all still own a building somewhere in the city, and most operate a branch open to customers in the city centre.

If you used branch services from any of the conventional banks, at all, ever the service got significantly worse in this period. But for First Direct nothing changed, the people who pick up (in under 5 rings per the founder's goals, I've met some of them, actually I worked for some of them in a previous role) are technically call centre workers, but they've got all the skills needed to assist customers the same way a deputy branch manager or equivalent might have if there were still branches, which there are not.

Obviously most banks these days have a web portal where basic stuff can be done, and that all exists for First Direct. I can check my balances, recent statements, move money, order some basic stuff... but any time the web portal can't do it, I just call them and that's where the magic is.

There's no nonsense trying to fob you off with a machine, every call is answered (aim: under 5 rings) by a human, who can verify you are who you claim to be and either do what's necessary in most cases or hand you off. Almost everything is 24/7 so I have literally never thought about when I call them, I just call them, and talk, like the person who picks up is a bank manager, because in effect that's the role they have.

I've called them to move the price of a home from my account to a lawyer (to buy the place where I live now), and I've called them to ask my current account balance at like 2am, I've called to say "I lost my credit card, oops" and I've called to ask what happens if I want cash (answer: for small amounts they just cause it to be vended from a nearby ATM on request, for large amounts it comes by courier). There's no sign that they even distinguish between the most trivial silly requests and those that you'd need to make an appointment for at a "real" bank. It's all just part of the job. I've never applied for a loan from them (I don't like owing people money, hence I bought my home for cash) but my understanding is that I could get a mortgage by just calling. After all they have all my financial records for decades.