FOR centuries moneylenders and banks used tokens, coins and paper to transact their trade. We had to go to them when they were open to attend to our business, withdraw and deposit our money in their strong room.

At lunchtime, banks and their branches got busy and we had to wait in line. Then we saw the arrival of the automatic teller machine (ATM) and plastic cards.

Banking and the money business became more customer-centric, reasonably friendly, and available 24-hours a day. Although we still had to visit ATMs, we had the new freedom of deciding when and where, and it was much less likely that we would have to wait in line.

Banking by telephone cured the inconvenience of travel, provided a 24-hour service, and far more services than the ATM, while introducing us to waiting in invisible lines.

Next came banking online via the internet, and at last we had full control and convenience apart from having to sit at a personal computer (PC) or a television to gain access.

Finally we can now do it all it through mobile phones, and we don't even have to be standing or sitting still - money on the move is now a reality.

A curious feature of this migration is that we have subsumed an increasing responsibility for all transactions, the terminal hardware and the connection costs.

We provide all the terminal equipment and operating expertise, and are pleased to do so because of the sheer convenience and speed of transaction.

So the question is - will we be happy to see this paradigm extended to other areas of our lives?

I think so, and I think we will be only too pleased to take people out of the loop when they actually get in the way. To test this hypothesis, I have been experimenting in retail stores around the world. So eager are the retailers to learn about us that they now ask a multitude of questions that are slowly, and with mistakes, typed into a PC terminal, to be subsumed into some hidden database.

What goes wrong here is something like this: "Could I have your surname please? Cochrane. Cockaine? No, Cochrane. Could you spell that? C, O, C, H, R, A, N, E," and so on ad-irritum until you get down to the postal code, phone number and the special purchase warranty deal.

This is mad. Just think about it. The information is in my brain, I say the words, the sales assistant mishears or does not comprehend, asks for repeats, and then types the information, that I know to perfection, on my behalf.

So recently I have taken to helping sales people by volunteering to fill in the boxes, and as a result getting it right first time.

In the United States sales assistants seem to view all this as a great novelty, and are willing to just move over and help, while in the UK it can be a bit more difficult. They either flatly refuse to let me near the keyboard or need a great deal of persuading to let me type in my own details.

But I look forward to the day when either I get to use the keyboard as a matter of right and convenience, or the terminal equipment can access all the information they need from my credit and loyalty cards, or mobile phone, directly.

Right now we have a halfway house where customers and suppliers both have a fraction of the terminal equipment, but we are heading to a world where this responsibility will reside with the customer in toto.

Peter Cochrane holds the Collier Chair for the Public Understanding of Science & Technology at the University of Bristol. His home page is:
http://cochrane.org.uk