Cash campaign set to name eight pilot communities

AN organisation set up to look at ways of keeping cash on the high street will this week reveal the communities it has selected to pilot new initiatives designed to boost consumer access to cash.

The Mail on Sunday understands that the ‘ Community Access to Cash Pilots’ board, chaired by cash champion Natalie Ceeney, has selected eight communities to participate in the project. This is from 21 applications made. A raft of new ideas will be trialled by the eight with funding and staffing provided by the banking industry. They include ‘shared’ bank branches that customers of all the big banks will be able to use.

Shared branches, where the supporting banks all contribute to their running costs, have long been championed by campaigners such as former banker Derek French who believe they would help sustain communities and maintain access to cash. Prior to coronavirus, hundreds of towns had already seen their high streets adversely impacted by the closure of the last bank and the widespread removal of free-to-use cash machines.

It is expected further branch and ATM closures are now inevitable as banks seek to trim costs and mitigate losses stemming from economic lockdown. A number of communities are keen to see if a shared branch would be a revitalising force and have recommended to the board that they should act as guinea pigs.

Among them are Ampthill in Bedfordshire; Woodstock in Oxfordshire; and Barton-upon-Humber in North Lincolnshire. It is not known whether any of these are among the chosen eight.

Over the last decade, the use of cash has declined sharply, from six in every ten payments to three. Coronavirus has quickened this decline with many businesses now only accepting contactless or card payments, so the board is keen to get the pilots off the ground as quickly as possible.

On Friday, Ceeney would only say that the board had received some ‘great’ applications.