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The survival of hundreds of local bank branches in rural and suburban communities comes under new pressure today from two different directions:
- The extended OFT market study into personal banking pricing
- The globalisation of Britain’s banks personified by the Barclays and RBS/NatWest tussle for ABN Amro
Derek French, Hon Director of the Campaign for Community Banking Services (CCBS) said:
“A crackdown on penalty charges and the PPI market could hit bank profits from the high street by 25%, forcing further savage cuts to branch networks”.
“ Whatever the outcome of the take-over battle for world-wide bank ABN Amro, the UK high street’s importance to group profitabilty at RBS/NatWest and Barclays will diminish substantially: the branch shutting example of global HSBC (UK high street is 8% of group profit) is an unattractive precedent”.
CCBS calls on the banks to recognise these problems in advance and pilot low cost neutral shared branching alternatives to closure such as community banks and banking centres. Additionally it calls upon government not to sit on the sidelines but to take legislative powers to protect local access to banking.
Contact: Derek French 015582 764760
Notes for Editors
- CCBS is a coalition of 29 national organisations concerned about bank branch closure, financial exclusion and community sustainability. Details: www.communitybanking.org.uk
- Market study details announced by OFT 26 April 2007
- Banking Centres and Community Banks are shared branching models which provide a common counter service to customers of several banks; the model has been validated in the UK and operates in the USA.
- In the last 10 years traditional high street banks have closed over 2500 branches. 1000 communities have only one bank remaining.
- On 4 April government failed to endorse the Treasury Committee’s recommendation for an exploration of shared branching.
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