‘We use our mobile RBS van every week... they nearly axed it anyway’

Rural business owners have hit out at claims from the RBS chief executive that mobile banking services have been withdrawn from their village because “nobody’s there”.

Confronted over plans to withdraw mobile banking vans from a series of Borders villages even as RBS plans to shut nearby high street branches, Ross Mcewan told MPS: “I can’t have stops where there is nobody there for a long period of time.”

However, the co-owners of the Plough Inn in Leitholm said the RBS van that stopped in their village was nearly withdrawn last week despite being well-used by the local community, and remains at risk.

RBS’S head of personal and business banking, Les Matheson told MPS on the Scottish Affairs Committee: “We are increasing the number of communities that we are visiting, but if we are visiting a community and nobody’s there, we will take it away.”

John Lamont, the MP for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, accused RBS execu- 0 Sarah and David Mclean at the Plough Inn pub tives of saying one thing and doing “the complete opposite” after a commitment was made earlier this year to increase the number of mobile banking stops.

“Despite your warm words this morning, words of reassurance to keep us all content, the reality in practice on the ground is very different,” the Borders MP said.

“You come to this committee and say one thing, and do the complete opposite in the communities that we are representing.”

Mr Mcewan said: “We have more stops now than when we came to the committee last time… we need to be clear that where peo- ple aren’t using the facility, that needs to change.”

An RBS van that stopped in Borders towns including Coldstream, Lauder and St Boswell’s was due to be withdrawn on 30 April, but the service was spared at the last minute following a public outcry.

Sarah Mclean, who runs the pub, said that the modern RBS van that used to visit weekly has been withdrawn to cover branch closures elsewhere in the Borders, but an older vehicle was sent in its place last week.

“The public uproar was more than they expected, so they had a quick rethink,” Ms Mclean said, adding that a new timetable meant business owners found it more difficult to use the vans because they now arrive in the mid-morning, rather than lunchtime.

“Within our village there are six people that use it. We use it every week. Our local branch is eight miles away.”

Ms Mclean added: “I have a feeling that we’re getting the older van [because] they’re going to look very closely at usage, and they’re going to withdraw the service later in the year.”