Hallelujah! Proof that cash is far from dead
THE local post office is much changed from what it used to be, stripped of many of its services as a result of the Government’s determination to get us to do all things online.
And the ‘Horizon’ computer scandal, which left many subpostmasters wrongly accused of false accounting and theft, still casts a dark cloud over the probity of the network’s management.
But its vital role in communities countrywide cannot be underestimated.
Post offices remain places where people and small businesses can do their banking – especially key in towns where bank branches have been axed, either left empty and neglected (shameful) or turned into coffee shops (a little more acceptable).
Figures just released confirm their importance as a local banking hub. In July, £1.8 billion of cash was deposited via post office counters in the network’s 11,500 branches by a mix of personal customers and small businesses – monthly sums not seen since Covid-19 sent the country into lockdown.
Cash withdrawals totalled £600million, 13 per cent up on the month before. Cash usage, it seems, is far from dead (hallelujah, I say).
The figures were hailed by those determined to stop the banks from turning the country into a cashless island. Cash ‘champion’ Natalie Ceeney was among them. She referred to the ‘vital’ access to cash that post offices provide – and also the network’s role in allowing cashgenerative businesses to bank deposits locally rather than having to travel miles to deposit their takings at the nearest bank.
If cash is to survive on our high streets, it is crucial that the post office network is kept intact and not broken up in response to any withdrawal of funding by a Government looking to rein in spending.
Of course, it will take more than post offices to keep access to cash. It’s why Ceeney is overseeing the launch of several pilots designed to test new ways of safeguarding cash – foremost among them being shared or community bank branches. This is an idea I have long supported and one whose time has surely come. Only the intransigence of the banks will thwart it.
It is also essential that no more free-to-use cash machines are removed from towns and villages where the ATM provides the main access to cash.
Indeed, rather than being jettisoned, non-charging ATMs should be reintroduced into bankless communities. In this regard, cash machine network Link is doing its bit. It is committed to installing 100 free-touse cash machines in areas that need (and request) one.
Although Covid-19 has (understandably) thrown a big spanner in its works, Link has just flicked the on-switch for six free-to-use ATMs that communities requested. This means 17 have been installed since last November, with a further ten scheduled to go live soon.
These include an ATM at Fairfield General Hospital in Bury – currently, the only way staff can get cash is via a cashback facility at a nearby petrol station for which they must pay a fee. Why a free-to-use ATM has not previously been available to these marvellous NHS workers beggars belief.
LINK’S Nick Quin told me that 200,000 people have used the cash machines it has installed since last November. ‘We are proud of the impact they have had on communities,’ he added. But of course, they aren’t a panacea for all the ills impacting the high street.
Just over a week ago, I spent 24 hours in Battle, East Sussex – a town that has benefited from one of Link’s free-to-use cash machines, but which judging by the state of its high street (lots of To Let signs) is struggling to emerge from lockdown.
It will take much more than the ATM to keep some of its businesses afloat.
As one lovely retailer told me, rental reductions would help as would less onerous council taxes and (how ironic is this) lower charges imposed by the banks on shops taking card payments.
Damn the banks. I say. If your community needs an ATM, visit link.co.uk