Santander Closures and Local Communities
Debate between John Glen and Neil Parish(5 years, 3 months ago)
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John Glen
As I was going to respond to the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), who also raised that point about bank branch closure figures, the FCA, which is the regulator responsible for regulating banks, did some analysis of branch closures as part of its “Strategic Review of Retail Banking Business Models” published in December last year. The full research can be found in an annex to the review. The analysis looks at the number and pattern of closures, how they affect urban and rural areas, the age of the customer, the level of deprivation and income levels. It is a thorough analysis across multiple banks and it very much informs Government policy.
Neil Parish
How much do the Government ask the banks to co-operate with one another, so that there is some sort of service from whichever bank denomination it might be? At the moment, they are just closing and there does not seem to be any pattern to help our constituents who want to receive financial services.
John Glen
My hon. Friend’s intervention picks up on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Kirstene Hair) and others about hubs. The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) raised it to, and I think in his maiden speech he talked about the need to bring banks together. There is no regulatory bar to that and it might be a model that banks will wish to reflect on. As has been pointed out, representatives from Santander are in earshot—that may be a model they wish to take forward.