Bank on impact
Hurt badly, Perthshire communities told
per cent of customers are now choosing to bank digitally with us on a regular basis instead.
“We are communicating with our customers affected by the closures and are proactively contacting vulnerable customers and regular branch users.
“We have extended the time between announcing our decision and the branch closures to six months – this has been done so that we can ensure our customers have enough time to consider the right banking options for them and to give us time to support them one-to-one during the transition.
“We know that not all of our customers are comfortable or familiar with using online or mobile banking, so we have created a new specialist taskforce of RBS TechXperts who will be dedicated to supporting our customers with training and support with digital skills until the branch closes.
“We are therefore following the Access to Banking Standard and we have made our decision after careful consideration of a wide range of factors including changes in customer usage of the branch over a long period of time – how often customers are using the branch and the types of transactions they undertake, the number of customers who only bank via the branch, and the other ways our customers can bank locally.
“We provide a range of alternative ways to bank, tailored to the needs of our customers and reflective of the way they live their lives.”
After the Pitlochry branch closes on Thursday, it will be swiftly followed by the closure of the nearby Aberfeldy branch in the town’s Square on Thursday, June 7.
And there will be two closures only within a matter of days when the Kinross RBS shuts on Monday, June 25 and the Perth South Street RBS
A large protest was held in Aberfeldy over the closure of the Perth and Kinross branches closes on Wednesday, June 27. The branch in Comrie’s Drummond Street has however been given a six month reprieve, and will therefore not close as planned within the next month.
In Pitlochry a demonstration was staged outside the Atholl Road bank at the beginning of April, where local residents took to the streets with protest banners in an attempt to stop the planned closure.
Residents who currently rely on the town’s branch will now have to travel over 20 miles to either Blairgowrie or the region’s main offices on Perth’s Dunkeld Road.