Three Newcastle Permanent employees with a combined 143 years service marked the organisation's 118th birthday with insights into how banking has changed in the past 60 years.
Jenni Papanicolaou (Hamilton), Carolyn Hore (Kotara) and Jen Wallace (Waratah) have worked their whole careers at the Perm and are still serving customers to this day, with no plans to retire just yet.
"I started with Newcastle Permanent 59 years ago in December 1962," said Ms Hore, who is affectionately known by her colleagues and customers as 'Nanna Carolyn'.
"I've seen massive changes in how we bank, spend, borrow, save and use money."
Having worked at the organisation for just under half of Newcastle Permanent's life, Ms Hore said when she first started, there were no computers, decimal currency was newly introduced and ATMs hadn't been invented yet.
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"We used to have to hand count money and hand write around 200 cheques a day," she said. "Now we'd be lucky to do one."
The trio marked the birthday celebration with a walk down memory lane, having worked through the birth of decimal currency, plastic notes, gold coins, plastic cards, computers, the ATM, the first credit cards, account numbers and the internet.
"We can remember when the first computer was introduced in a branch instead of using paper ledgers," Ms Hore said. "We handed out the first plastic EFTPOS cards at the front door to encourage people to use them instead of passbooks and build confidence in something other than cash."
The trio were also present for the phasing out of one and two cent coins in the early 1990s.
"I was allergic to copper of all things so was so happy when they phased out those coins, I'd get such a terrible reaction to them," said Ms Papanicolaou, who this year celebrates 44 years service.
"I remember when the first ATM came. I was terrified. We had to learn all about it and teach the customers. Sometimes their hands would be shaking. But now, we couldn't live without them."
"I had one customer who would bring in money he'd bury in his backyard to keep it safe. We'd have to wash it all before counting and banking it," said Ms Wallace, who has clocked up 40 years of service.
The three women came together to cut the cake at Newcastle Permanent's Hamilton branch on Tuesday morning.
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