Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether he is taking steps to help ensure that the UK’s main banks maintain their membership of (a) LINK, (b) the Post Office and (c) other collective bodies for the purposes of ensuring the long-term sustainability of the UK’s ATM infrastructure.

In the Queen’s Speech in May 2022 the government announced that it will introduce legislation to protect access to cash as part of the Financial Services and Markets Bill. The government intends to establish the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as the lead regulator for access to cash with responsibility to ensure that people can continue to access cash withdrawal and deposit facilities. Through this legislation the government intends to ensure that people can continue to use cash in their day-to-day lives. The Bill will be brought forward when Parliamentary time allows.

Industry will continue to be best placed to develop the most efficient and sustainable solutions to provide access to cash, under the oversight of the FCA. The Government’s approach focuses on preserving the distribution of existing facilities rather than seeking a substantial redistribution or large-scale introduction of access points to additional areas.

With regards to ATMs, LINK (the scheme that runs the UK's largest ATM network) has commitments to protect the broad geographic spread of free-to-use ATMs and is held to account against these commitments by the Payment Systems Regulator. LINK has committed to protect free-to-use ATMs more than one kilometre away from the next nearest free ATM or Post Office, and free access to cash on high streets (where there is a cluster of five or more retailers) that do not have a free-to-use ATM or a Post Office counter within one kilometre.

Furthermore, following the Government’s commitment to legislate, firms are working together through the Cash Action Group to develop new initiatives to protect access to cash. As part of this work, any community facing the closure of a key cash service will have its needs independently assessed by LINK, who will consider whether additional cash services are required. Communities are now also able to request an assessment of their community’s access to cash by LINK.