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4 June 2007
 

ALTERNATIVES TO BANK BRANCH CLOSURES: TASKFORCE STUDY WELCOMED

Shared branching back on the agenda
 

The Treasury’s Financial Inclusion Taskforce is set to consider the role of shared branches, and other innovative alternatives to branch closure, as part of a government requested study of how developments in the banking market might impact on financial inclusion and in answer to a Treasury Select Committee recommendation.

Derek French, Hon Director of the Campaign for Community Banking Services (CCBS), said:

“The study should not be confined to areas with high concentrations of the financially excluded: individuals and small businesses all over the country are impacted by the loss of local banking facilities and could benefit from shared branching.”

Regrettably this very long overdue investigation, campaigned for strongly by CCBS, comes too late for hundreds of communities like Shepshed in Leicestershire (population 15000), which have needlessly lost all their local banking facilities. CCBS calls on the retail banking industry to co-operate fully and constructively with the Taskforce in their forthcoming study.

Contact: Derek French 01582 764760

Notes for Editors

  1. CCBS is a coalition of 28 national organisations concerned about bank branch closure, financial exclusion and community sustainability. Details: www.communitybanking.org.uk
  2. Treasury Committee recommendation 32 in ‘Banking the Unbanked’ 19 November 2006.
  3. ‘Financial inclusion: the way forward’-4.15. HMT March 2007
  4. Banking Centres and Community Banks are shared branching models which can provide a common counter service to customers of several banks: the model has been validated in the UK and operates in the USA.
  5. In the last 10 years traditional high street banks have closed over 2500 branches: 1000 communities have only one bank remaining.
  6. Replacing the last bank to close in Shepshed, Leicestershire(Jan 2007) with a ‘shared branching’ facility could have saved 1.4m miles of travel and 500 tonnes of carbon emissions annually. Transport 2000 4 Jan 2007.