FSB calls for UK Government intervention over bank closures

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) is calling on the UK Government to step in to stop hundreds of communities being left without a bank branch.

In a submission to Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee ahead of today’s grilling of RBS executives by MPs, it said “it is essential that the UK Government establishes a minimum level of banking service provision”.

Their intervention comes as figures compiled by FSB show that RBS has slashed its branch network by 70% in the last five years.

The FSB’s Scottish policy convener Andy Willox said: “Branch closures hit firms with additional costs – it becomes more difficult to manage cash flow and forces them to waste hours that should be spent doing business traipsing miles back and forth to a distant branch.”

The FSB submission urges the committee to widen the scope of the inquiry to examine the “true scale” and economic impact of all branch closures in Scotland.

Perthshire campaigner Hamish Carlton is calling for a cooperative approach to help communities retain services.

“I think that the Scottish Government should ‘call in’ the Scottish top management of all banks who operate in Scotland, and ask them to work together, to devise and agree on a process which would ensure that where there are existing, single or multiple branches in Scottish cities, towns or villages, at least one branch, of one of the banks, will remain open,” he said.

This would meet the needs of tourists and the many people who do not bank online, he added.

Andy Willox.