Outcry grows over Barclays’ Post Office ban

Leadsom orders the bank to reverse its ‘disappointing’ move

Andrea Leadsom, the Business Secretary, last night rapped Barclays’ decision to ban its customers from taking out cash through post offices and called on the bank to think again.

She said bosses at the High Street giant should reconsider their decision.

‘I think this is very disappointing,’ she said.

‘Post offices provide such a lifeline for so many people particularly in rural areas where there has been a tendency not to be a bank anyway.

‘The opening hours tend to be longer than at banks.

‘Access to finance is so useful for elderly people and people without transport.

‘The Post Office has been really helpful to people getting access to cash and carrying out their day-today financial transactions so, yes, I am disappointed.’

When asked whether she would call upon the bank to reconsider, she said: ‘I just did.’ Leadsom was speaking as she launched a new small and medium business charter signed by leading banks – including Barclays – which have promised to support firms through Brexit.

The banks have set aside billions for lending and support for firms and have pledged they are ‘open for business and ready to lend’. But Barclays’ proposals to forbid its customers to take out cash through their local post offices has provoked widespread condemnation.

The controversial move is also a blow to the struggling post office network.

Banking services are a vital source of income for postmasters, the independent businessmen who run local post offices.

As many as 2,500 of them said that they are considering resigning or downsizing in the next year because of the financial hardship they experience, according to a recent survey.

Barclays, which made £3.5bn profits last year, is estimated to have shut more than 480 branches in the past five years, or around a third of its total.

rachel reeves, the Labour chairman of the business select committee, said: ‘This unjustifiable decision from Barclays to stop customers accessing their own money from post offices is a deeply retrograde step.

‘It lets down customers, undermines the post office network, and potentially leaves people in many places without access to their own cash.

‘It’s essential that the future viability of the post office network is secured, and unfortunately this decision from Barclays suggests they are forgetting their wider social responsibilities.’

The national Federation of Sub- Postmasters also condemned the bank, accusing it of ‘hypocrisy, greed and contempt for its customers’. Its chief executive Calum Greenhow said removing cash withdrawal services was ‘damaging to communities across the UK’.

He added: ‘Barclays are telling their customers: “We don’t care about you.” They are telling sub-postmasters: “We don’t care about you.”

‘The bank needs to locate its moral compass and reverse this decision before it is too late.’

Former Liberal democrat leader Tim Farron MP said: ‘Barclays is throwing our local communities under a bus – especially after closing branches in local towns in my Lake district constituency.

He added that he would write to Leadsom and Barclays chief executive Jes Staley demanding that Barclays change its mind.

Martin Kearsley, head of banking at the Post Office, said that he was ‘disappointed’.

Barclays hit back by promising it would not close branches in remote areas, where it is the last in town, for two years.

The move will protect 100 ringfenced branches until October 2021, the company said.

Its customers will also be able to get cashback from businesses in 200 remote towns and areas without a bank branch or ATM within half a mile. But critics said this was ‘a token gesture’. The Barclays decision will remove cash withdrawal from 6,100 rural post offices.