Why is bank axe falling on our branches?
Scots communities suffer one in five of all UK closures since 2014
SCOTLAND is bearing the brunt of bank closures as some of the UK’s most fragile communities lose their banks – with one in five bank branch closures since 2014 north of the Border.
This year, the country will lose another 73 branches, on top of 115 last year and almost 200 in the previous two years, out of a total of 1,900 closures throughout the UK during that time.
More than a third of all the banks that were open in Scotland in 2013 have closed, leaving fewer than 700 branches.
David Richardson, Highlands and Islands development manager for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), says: ‘We have fewer and fewer banks in an area with an ageing population and a lack of digital infrastructure.’
He says that soon the North of Scotland will have lost 14 banks in two years at a time when the region’s North Coast500 tourism initiative is taking off.
Visitors driving the 500-mile coastal road trip have soared since 2015, yet in October Bank of Scotland closed six branches on the eastern flank of the route – hard on the heels of three RBS closures north of Inverness and the loss of the Clydesdale branch in Thurso, Caithness.
Now another four RBS branches are to go, including the last remaining bank on the isle of Barra.
‘Many communities are very fragile and tourism underpins their whole well-being,’ Mr Richardson says.
PeOPLe spending cash is very important but too often cash machines have disappeared, run out of money or broken down. Banks are turning their back on many Highland communities, walking away for what they think are solid commercial reasons.’
Under a branch closure protocol, banks are supposed to consult with local people before making any drastic decisions. But campaigners say they have received only closure announcements.
Joan Bishop, who chairs the Dornoch Area Community Interest Company in Sutherland, says: ‘We have a higher than usual percentage of the population over 65 and many don’t have transport to go to another branch.
‘Public transport is not brilliant and they don’t like doing transactions in a post office in the middle of a shop.’
She adds: ‘We wrote to the bank and they managed to lose the letter, even though it was signed for and I have the receipt.
‘They have made up their mind. It says on their website they have consulted the FSB and Citizens Advice but as far as I know they haven’t. Their idea of consultation is to tell people what is happening, not to listen.
‘The banking code talks about carrying out an impact assessment but it seems the only thing they are worried about is the impact on the bank, not the people.’
The community firm disputes BoS’s claim the Dornoch branch was only used by ten people a week, saying among its membership 14 people used it regularly.
The bank insists its figures were accurate but Mrs Bishop says: ‘At a time when we have been working really hard over years to build up visitors and are attracting new businesses, the bank is pulling the rug from beneath us.’
RBS chief operating officer Ross Mcewan has presided over a period of retrenchment, with 30 branches lost last year.
Other disappearing branches include 23 Bank of Scotland, 40 Clydesdale, 17 TSB, two Santander and three Yorkshire Building Society branches.
To this year’s closure list have been added another 11 by Bank of Scotland, as well as 62 by Royal Bank of Scotland, which have provoked a political backlash and an inquiry by the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster.
GORDON Henderson, FSB development manager in the east of Scotland, says 90 per cent of small businesses are one-man bands and owners ‘really value the face-toface contact’.
He adds: ‘elderly people and those with disabilities don’t find it so easy just to hop along to the next big town along the road.’
Mr Henderson questions why banks cannot share premises, as the Post Office does, adding: ‘Why do you never see a bank at the back of a busy shop?
‘There is still a role for branches. One issue with digital banking is that Scotland is not particularly well set up for broadband and mobile signals in some areas.’
Ann Johnson, a businesswoman from Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, which is just off the A90 on the way from Dundee to Aberdeen and which lost its RBS more than a year ago, says: ‘The people in the bank were fantastic.
‘My elderly father is the most vulnerable person and would give anybody his money but we knew they would not take advantage of him.
‘They have replaced that with a van that comes twice a week, with steep steps, and you have to queue in the rain. If you get to the nearest banks at Stonehaven or Montrose, they are rammed because they have closed so many.’
Amanda Frazer, who operates a bed and breakfast at Newtonmore,