The monthly meeting of Cowra Men's Probus was held on Tuesday, February 6 at the Cowra Masonic Hall following the Christmas break.
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There were many things that came up in the meeting, the first being that fees for the new year will still be set at $25 for members.
The ladies Probus Club has proposed a cruise on the Diamond Princess for September 26 giving members plenty of notice.
Also with plenty of notice was a proposed tour by the Linga Longa Touring Company from Yarrawonga which is to be planned for September 1 to 6 and to be viable it has to have a minimum of 35 tourists.
So start saving for a great September.
A motion was put to the meeting in regard to banking procedures for the club into the future with the gradual phasing out of cheques and the introduction of direct deposits associated with internet banking.
The guest speaker for the morning was Mark Kemsley who is from the Westpac Bank and it seemed appropriate that he should give us his talk.
Mark is a country boy from Wingham who started his banking career with the Commonwealth Bank at St Leonards where he described the banking as we knew it and with many anecdotes about the job.
One of the main things was that people were able to open many accounts without identifications and using these accounts to 'hide' money. This ended in 1990 when the Keating Government introduced the identification detail.
Internet Banking from 2005 decimated community banking with many branches closing and amalgamations to save money. When Mark was in Nowra in 1995 the bank branch had 65 staff and by 2014 it only had 17.
Mark left the Commonwealth Ban and went to Forbes with the St George Bank.
He then spoke about cheque books and their phasing out timeline
One of the biggest worries with modern banking is the advent of scams and all the devious methods scammers use to try to relieve you of your money. Phone scams are the most common and if you have a worry then go and talk about it with the bank.
Mark stated that face to face in the bank with your concerns will help keep these facilities open. The banks will also assist people trying to navigate the terrors of the internet at the branch.
One frightening thing he said about scammers is that in a lot of cases it comes from within the family, the most common being grandchildren scamming their grandparents.
Mark had a word of advice to everybody and that was to have two accounts, one being kept at a minimum balance and only used to pay accounts and the other a very private account. He then talked about identification devices such as face recognition and fingerprint as an added protection.
After he finished his talk Mark fielded many questions about banking.
Mark was thanked for his very interesting talk by Doug Beer.
