I've owned a bank account for as long as I can remember because my dad did create my first ever bank account at a very young age till I came of age and began operating it myself, I was excited to go to the bank after my secondary school education, dad said I will be handling all of my transactions myself now, the first thing that cut short that excitement was the long queue we had joined, to make it worst, the process was very slow that it took ages to get to our turn. That was my very first discouraging experience of having to visit the bank, to think I will be having more frequent visits from that day henceforth, the time spent waiting in the line would have been used productively in another aspect.
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Then online banking got introduced, and making regular visits wasn't necessary for all transactions anymore, but as it got easier, so did it get more expensive, the bank found more means of giving us unexpected debit alerts tagged as maintenance fees, every transaction you make comes with a price, the more the transaction the more the accumulated charges. Of course, no one likes seeing debit alerts on the repeats so this is another turn-off for me using the centralized banking system.
It hasn't been long I got to know about the decentralized way of saving our money and also making transactions, no need for long queues, and minimal or no fees for transactions, I can easily send some hive to a friend in another country, and she hashes it out without any transaction fee, isn't that amazing, compared to having to use the centralized form of banking where I would be charged crazily high fir sane transactions.
With my explanation above, you already guess which is my best form of banking.
The decentralized way is the most preferred for me, I get to save my money in HBD for instance which is a stablecoin and there is no fear of hidden charges, instead, I get a 20% APY interest each month depending on the quantity of HBD saved. There are also more diversified ways of investing using a decentralized platform like investing in some second-layer tokens. So far from my little experience, it is more beneficial, although there is also a risk factor of being hacked since it's an online wallet and isn't insured, or if you get careless with your keys, all your assets saved could get wiped out, the reason why we are always advised to be very careful with our keys. To crown It all, it has the fastest means of transaction.
The improvement I will like in the centralized form of banking system
The very first improvement has to be the exorbitant charges, if it can be very minimal because I know it can't be eradicated totally, then it will be more encouraging, as the decentralized form of banking isn't yet accepted in my country, we still have no choice than to use them to exchange our crypto token to our local currency before making transactions for our needs
Hopefully in the nearest future, trading crypto for our basic needs would be accepted in our country and we won't have to worry about converting to fiat anymore.
Also, the slow transaction process and long protocols that involves signing of many documents, if this method can be simplified and made faster like the crypto wallet, then there won't be any need to choose which is better or more preferable.
This post is in response to the hive learners weekly contest, week 72, edition 2.