UK banks asked to ’share branches’ to help rural customers

Banks in the UK are being urged to share their branches in an effort to provide the required financial services to those in rural parts of the country.

It has been claimed that sharing branches would allow banks to significantly reduce costs and therefore enable them to provide essential services to rural communities without having to run them at a loss.

According to Derek French, director of the Campaign for Community Banking Services lobby group, as much as £500 million could be saved every year by banks if they shared their branches in more remote parts of the country.

The government is putting increasing pressure on banks not to close their rural services because of the damage this will do to village economies. However, many banks are concerned that their current arrangements in rural parts of Britain are causing them to lose money because there are simply not enough people to support the services on offer.

Although Mr French admitted that banks have in the past been against such proposals, his organisation believes that the pressure now being placed on banks from the government could mean that they are reconsidering these schemes.

Unless something is done soon, Mr French warned that banks could disappear from rural communities within five years.

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