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“Old but not dumb. » The slogan brandished by Valencian Carlos San Juan, 78, has become a rallying cry for thousands of elderly people in Spain. More than 612,000 people have signed the petition of this retired urologist who has embarked in recent weeks on a crusade against the all-digital system imposed by Spanish banks. Your poise and clear words, this old man with a receding hairline suffering from mild Parkinson’s has managed to raise awareness about a problem hitherto ignored by public institutions: the“exclusion of which seniors feel victims who do not know or cannot use online applications and services.
Because sometimes he felt “humiliated”, even ” disabled “, while he is in possession of all his faculties, and treated as a ” idiot “, for daring to ask for help, because of the “complex technology” made necessary for “simple steps” Carlos San Juan published, in December 2021, an online petition. On the change.org site, he demanded “human attention in bank branches”. “I am almost 80 years old and it saddens me a lot to see that the banks are forgetting old people like me. Now, almost everything is done on the Internet… and not all of us get along with machines very well”, indicates the text.
No longer feel “a burden”
His testimony found an echo in an aging country – the over 65s represent nearly 20% of the population – where, recalls Carlos San Juan, “Agencies keep closing”. Over the past ten years, nearly half of bank branches have disappeared, 40% of employees have been laid off and 20% of ATMs withdrawn, due to bank mergers after the 2008 financial crisis. And, where they exist, the branches reserve only a very limited time slot for the rare operations authorized at the counter.
“Depriving older people of the right to personal autonomy is a form of abuse. » Carlos San Juan
But, if many seniors solve these difficulties on the Internet by getting help from a loved one, Carlos San Juan wants to stay “as independent as possible”. He does not wish to disturb “children, nephews or neighbours”, nor feel ” a cannonball “.
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