SEEING LIKE A BANK

Summary from the TLDR newsletter

Banks often look like notably disorganized institutions to their customers, which is alarming and surprising for an entity that is supposed to accurately keep track of all of the money. Banks are extremely good at tracking ledgers, but bad at tracking other forms of truth for structural reasons. In extreme cases, banks can feel like they lack object permanence - every interaction can feel like you're starting from the beginning. This article explains how it got to be this way.