Sir,– I read with interest Laura Slattery's recent report on the futurologist Martin Raymond's prediction that mobile phones will soon replace ATMs ("ATMs tipped to go the way of phone boxes as millennials pay by mobile", Business, October 18th).
However, I take issue with Mr Raymond’s rather bald statement that, “The fact that that we have to walk to an ATM already means we have to make a decision before we can use it”.
What in heavens name is wrong with that! Having to make a decision and to walk in the fresh air to an ATM is a healthy physical and mental exercise and who knows, one could actually meet real live and interesting people along the way. In that Mr Raymond is working with a bank, it seems to me the bank is terrified that its customers are still in control of their God-given senses of reasoning and personal decisionmaking, which the bank now wants to control. – Yours, etc,
PHILIP HARRINGTON,
Ballymurray,
Roscommon.