Seeing like a Bank

The New York Times recently ran a piece on a purported sudden spate of banks closing customer accounts. Little of it is surprising if you have read previous issues of Bits about Money. The reported anecdotal user experiences have a common theme to them. Banks frequently present to their users as notably disorganized, discombobulated institutions. This is an alarming and surprising fact for the parts of society that are supposed to accurately keep track of all of the money.