How project is helping communities that need pounds

THE ‘community access to cash’ pilot scheme, which Burslem is part of, is being led by Natalie Ceeney, the former boss of the Financial Ombudsman Service and author of the 2019 report on access to cash.

The scheme is testing a range of i deas designed to i mprove access to cash across eight locations, many of which are based around cashback.

Ceeney says: ‘We estimate that as many as eight million people in Britain rely on cash for their day-to-day needs – so cashback i s essential f or communities struggling without banks and where free cash machines have disappeared.

‘But at the moment shops pay a fee of between three and four per cent for providing cashback at the till.

‘If banks were prepared to bear more of this fee then cashback would become a cost- effective way of making cash available on the high street.’

As a result of sterling work by Lord Holmes of Richmond, legislation will soon pave the way for cash back to be made widely available without the need for a customer to first make a purchase.

As well as testing the Sonect click- and- collect app, the cash pilot scheme includes: Two ‘banking hubs’ – in Rochford, Essex and Cambuslang, South Lanarkshire. Here people can do basic banking as well as meet a representative of their bank on a designated day. The banking service is provided by the Post Office. The installation of six free cash machines. These are in Botton, North Yorkshire; a military base at Lulworth, Dorset; and at the banking hub in Rochford.

Fee- charging cash machines have been converted into free ATMs at Millisle post office, County Down, Northern Ireland; Burslem; and at the Cambuslang banking hub. Cashback trials. A ‘ pop- up’ bank service at a Co-op store in Denny, Falkirk, in Scotland. A new post office in Hay-onWye, Brecknockshire, offering a free ATM and basic banking.