Bank boss admits: We broke branch closures promise

ROYAL Bank of Scotland chiefs yesterday admitted breaking a pledge not to shut ‘the last branch in town’ as they failed to rule out further closures.

Les Matheson, who runs the bank’s high street operations, told MPs that bosses had not fully anticipated the growth in digital banking when they made the promise in 2010 and 2011.

Mr Matheson, chief executive of personal and business banking at RBS, told Westminster’s Scottish affairs committee that seven out of ten customers now use mobile banking.

Both Mr Matheson and his colleague Jane Howard, managing director of personal banking, were quizzed by MPs yesterday over plans to close 62 branches across Scotland – which will see 13 towns left without a local office.

According to the pair, only 1 per cent of customers now use a branch regularly.

But there are concerns that those who do not have access to online banking – including many elderly people and other vulnerable groups – will experience difficulties.

Scottish Conservative MP Paul Masterton told the RBS pair: ‘The way you treat your customers is appalling.’

However, Mr Matheson and Mrs Howard argued that the bank was working to make banking easier and more accessible.

Scottish Labour MP Gerard Killen said he had been contacted by groups representing vulnerable people, who had expressed concerns about the closures.

He said a customer charter that RBS published in 2010 promised it would ‘never close the last branch in town’.

Mr Killen told the RBS pair that this pledge, which also featured in adverts, had been broken, and asked ‘what impact’ they thought this would have on vulnerable people.

Mr Matheson admitted that the pledge had been broken.

He added: ‘We obviously did make that promise, and we did not anticipate the huge change in terms of customer behaviour. It was before, really, mobile banking really took off, and we need to be careful about those sort of promises, because we don’t want to have branches in places where there aren’t any customers.’

The closures are expected to save just £9.5million annually, and will leave only 89 RBS branches across the whole of Scotland. Mr Matheson was asked if this was the ‘last round of closures for the foreseeable future’.

He said: ‘We have no other plans. I can absolutely categorically say that. What I can’t categorically say is that at some point in time, if circumstances changed in particular areas or technology, changed in a way that we can’t imagine right now, that things may change.’

RBS was bailed out by the taxpayer following the financial crash and is still 70 per cent owned by the public.

Nationalist MP Pete Wishart, chairman of the Scottish affairs committee, said he had been ‘left disappointed and frustrated’ by Mr Matheson and Mrs Howard.

He added: ‘They seem to not be listening to the deep concerns from communities right across Scotland over their branch closure programme.

‘They do not seem to appreciate how devastating the loss of a bank can be to a local community.’

Last night, Scottish Conservative MP John Lamont said: ‘RBS seems to have decided to turn its back on customers who are not in the Central Belt, don’t have access to good broadband, or live in rural communities. This is just not good enough.’