NO REPRIEVE FOR 52 AXED BRANCHES
RBS BOSS ANALYSIS
BY TORCUIL CRICHTON THERE will be no reprieve for 52 Royal Bank of Scotland branches scheduled for closure this summer.
RBS boss Ross McEwan told MPs yesterday that the branch closure programme by the state-owned bank will go ahead – because customers are moving to online banking.
In a meeting with MPs on the Commons’ Scottish Affairs Committee, RBS executives insisted they are responding to the changing nature of banking.
McEwan said: “I understand the process of change is very hard but we’re putting in place more than 2000 places where people can go face-to-face with their cash with this organisation.
“We’re putting in more facilitation than has been in this bank in its long history but it needs to move forwards as well.”
McEwan told MPs the size of the Scottish network would not be reviewed again until at least 2020 and that a review of 10 reprieved “last branches in town” would be seriously considered.
Bank executives McEwan, Les Matheson and Jane Howard faced anger from MPs over the closure programme.
The SNP’s Deidre Brock accused RBS of being “purely interested in maximising profits and losing community responsibilities”.
Bank officials denied the claim and also an accusation by Labour’s Ged Killen that the temporary reprieve for 10 RBS branches was “more about removing political pressure and that these branches were going to close and will close”.
Bank officials insisted a change in customer behaviour – with seven out of 10 people using mobile phone banking – was driving change. McEwan