Just a brief observation today.

I was in town on Friday afternoon and was pleased to find HSBC have put up a freestanding cash machine in the middle of a street for some reason. Next to the Royal Bank of Scotland and near to the Lloyds. And a short walk from HSBC itself, all of which have cash machines. I assume they did it just to annoy the Royal Bank.

But that’s not the point.

While I was there, withdrawing some money, as you would expect me to be doing at a cash machine, two women walked by. One paused and looked at the machine, and then looked at her friend and exclaimed - “Free cash withdrawals!”

Her friend nodded; “But you need a bank account to use it.”

They both looked tremendously confused by the concept, which removed all doubt that they may have been joking with each other. I think they were under the impression a bank had erected a machine to give free money to middle-aged women, or something.

The banks are all trying to put paid to those scamming cash machines that charge you a couple of quid to withdraw money in the name of reducing confusion. I think they may be onto a loser here. They’ll all be trying to claim back the money these machines unfairly withdrew from their bank accounts without warning when they put their bank cards into a free withdrawals machine.