A Year in Uruguay

Banks in Montevideo are open weekdays from 1pm to 5pm. The photo shows people waiting to do business at 1:00 this afternoon. The US used to have very limited bankers's hours as well-- from 10:00am- 3:00pm, if memory serves. The tradition of short banking hours goes back to the era of hand calculations. The banks needed time to manually add up their accounts and to balance their books. Modern banking is all electronic, so calculations are done in real time. That's true here as well. This bank is fully-outfitted with computers, ATMs, online banking, etc. Yet, it and its competitors are only open a few hours a day. I don't know if it's merely customary or some kind of government regulation. As a customer, it's not particularly convenient.

Labels: economics, Uruguay