At last, web helps the high street

THE online revolution has cut a swathe through our high streets. Shopping on screen for home delivery has wrecked the business strategies of a host of retailers, making their bricks and mortar properties a liability rather than an asset.

But could the online revolution now prove to be the saviour of that other declining high street asset – the bank branch?

Barclays’ trial to allow Amazon to use its outlets as click and collect locations is a sign of the ever encroaching online empire.

It may also provide a new revenue stream for the branches, providing them with just a little more reason to stay open.

Bank branches were in fact among the first to suffer from new technology. First telephone and then internet banking have meant fewer and fewer people ever need to set foot in one. This made them less viable for banks – a cost that is not delivering a return. But when they close, those who do still want or need a bank branch – small shops cashing up their tills or more traditional customers uncomfortable with the virtual world – are left high and dry.

Deals between high street banks and the Post Office currently under way will go some way to ensuring that even the most remote communities are less likely to be left without a branch, but anything that can create new uses and new value in them is to be welcomed.

Time will tell whether Barclays’ work with Amazon can make a significant difference and whether it is a model for others. But at the very least it is a symptom of the change sweeping high streets and the need for companies to think imaginatively if they want to survive in the real world as well as in the virtual one.

PRODUCTIVITY figures don’t usually set the heart racing, but last week it emerged that Britain’s had slumped in the last quarter of 2015. This should cause a nervous flutter among economists.

It has barely grown at all for a decade. This is not about how hard we all work. It is largely to do with the equipment and technology we use and the skills we acquire. At the risk of sounding glib, a worker with a spade will be far less productive than one trained to operate a JCB.

The failure of productivity to improve is one of the most worrying features of our recent economic performance. The UK economy has grown, better than our rivals, but largely because of rising employment and population. It would be better if this was matched by a more significant type of progress in technology, equipment and training a skilled workforce.

‘Throw on more cheap labour’ can only be a short-term solution.