Financial Inclusion: Rural Areas
Debate between Anna Sabine and Clive Jones(1 week ago)
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Anna Sabine
That sounds very frustrating; I am sorry to hear it. I will talk about the importance of face-to-face contact in banking.
Shutting branches and opening banking hubs is currently financially efficient for banks, but there is a real risk that those banking hubs could close after a few years once the banks stop saving money and see the hubs as a drain on their profits instead of a benefit. We need reassurance about the long-term provision of banking hubs and a requirement on banks to keep funding them on an ongoing basis.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In Wokingham, our application for a banking hub was declined, despite the hard work of one of my constituents, Lynn Forbes. The work of Link, within the current legislation, can help to encourage the protection of face-to-face banking. However, it is not explicitly empowered to take that into account, and it is therefore not considered in Link’s final decision-making process for a banking hub. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to introduce further legislation to require the protection of face-to-face banking services?
Anna Sabine
I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to tighten up and look again at the criteria to which Link is working, to make sure that banking hubs are in the right places.
To turn away from banking hubs, I would like to raise the role of the post office, which is a vital service in many rural areas. In the village of Rode in my constituency, the post office sits within the local shop and café, doing vital work in not only posting parcels but supporting the local community. We have pop-up post offices in communities such as Freshford and Mells. For the elderly, the post office is a vital support in providing information on how to deal with bills and understand their pension credits, as well as generally giving them someone to talk to. Post office branches provide basic banking services, and in small towns where a banking hub is not viable, post offices are often the only remaining financial institution for customers and small and medium-sized enterprises.