Some recent letters have criticised banks for making it difficult for customers to obtain a current balance.

I do agree with the latest one (March 24) maintaining "modern technology has a lot to answer for".

Over-reliance on this very technology has taken away a major part of the thinking process from a large proportion of the public.

Whenever I go into a bank for the normal purpose of making a deposit, there are customers holding up the queue by requesting their balances from the tellers.

Have people lost the ability to manage their own finances by calculating, using the traditional methods of addition and subtraction, the amount of cash (or probably overdraft) that they have?

The banks are nannying these customers, and should politely ask that they work it out for themselves. It would be really good for the remaining brain cells.

The bottom line is the banks do not know whether there are any cheques which have not yet been presented so it is not possible for them to give an accurate figure anyway.

I am not a particular fan of these institutions but do feel in this case they are being unfairly maligned.

Their only fault is they are encouraging the fast-increasing innumeracy of the population.

-Ivor Sorokin, The Spinney, Hove