ATM network has ‘broken’

BRITAIN’S cash machine network is ‘broken’ and in desperate need of an overhaul to protect small businesses and vulnerable families, a top MP has warned.

Almost 500 are being axed from the High Street every month in a move that could isolate elderly customers who rely on them to pay their bills.

Senior politicians have now called for drastic action as millions of Britons are left struggling to withdraw cash from banks. Nicky Morgan, Tory MP and chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, said: ‘The national system for people to have access to their cash via machines is basically broken.’

The increasing popularity of digital payment services such as Apple Pay has seen swathes of free cash machines in rural areas closed as falling demand for hard cash makes them too costly to operate.

That also hurts millions of small business owners which have customers who want to pay for goods using notes and coins.

Britain’s ATM network is run by Link, which has been criticised for increasing the fees independent operators have to pay to banks when money is withdrawn from one of their cash machines.