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NEWS RELEASE |
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| 1 August 2006 |
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| Free ATM Offers: Are they what they seem? | |
| The Campaign for Community Banking (CCBS), which campaigns for local access to banking, gave a qualified welcome to the initiatives of RBS/NatWest and HBOS to offer some free ATMs to the most deprived communities but says “could do better.” Last year CCBS proposed to the major retail banks an industry wide co-ordinated scheme that would ensure free ATM accessability in communities from which the banks had withdrawn all branch presence and need was proven. By closing local branches, and usually removing any free ATM at the same time, CCBS maintains that a ‘contract’ with the customer has been broken. The CCBS scheme would not have been restricted to areas of high deprivation for need is wider than that. The initiatives now emerging from individual banks will be of some help and it is to be hoped that other banks will follow the RBS and HBOS examples. However the conditions attached to the RBS scheme especially are sufficiently onerous, and the machines of limited functionality and accessability, to provide serious obstacles to community participation. Derek French, Hon Director of CCBS said “this looks like an attempt to mitigate political and media criticism rather than a serious attempt to solve the problems of vulnerable communities: an industry co-ordinated scheme would be much better and a ‘shared branch’, as an alternative to closure, better still’” The banks must not be let off the hook on this issue. We expect better and look to the task force chaired by John McFall MP to achieve that. Derek French Hon Director Tel: 01582 764760 Notes
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