Customers are suffering from ‘shameless and shameful’ treatment by banks as they close branches and replace them with inadequate ‘hubs’ and other facilities, it was claimed yesterday.
Furious MPs attacked bank bosses over the strategy which means customers are left having to use the pop-up sites in unusual locations including a garden centre and even a public lavatory.
It comes after nearly 6,000 branches have been shut since the start of 2015, including 645 last year, and with more than 200 pencilled-in for this year.
Lenders say it is because people are increasingly using online banking facilities but critics say older and more vulnerable customers are abandoned.
Bosses at four major lenders – Charlie Nunn of Lloyds, Paul Thwaite of NatWest, Vim Maru of Barclays UK and Santander UK’s Mike Regnier – squirmed as they were confronted by angry MPs on the Treasury select committee.
Closures: Furious MPs attacked bank bosses over the strategy which means customers are left having to use the pop-up sites in unusual locations
‘Most of your customers are perplexed and don’t feel they have any idea when these cuts are going to stop, they don’t understand how decisions are being made,’ said Conservative MP Anne Marie Morris.
She described the banking hubs policy as ‘fundamentally flawed’, adding: ‘The sorts of places which are being established, because you can’t find sites which suit, we have one hub in a public lavatory.
‘I hope you are not proud of that. When will the bloodletting stop?’
Tory Therese Coffey singled out Barclays, saying constituents had complained of replacement bank ‘touchpoints’ being ‘not particularly private when you go to discuss things – they’re in a garden centre, they wait outside in the rain’.
She said the bank had not listened to feedback.
Coffey told Maru: ‘I think you’re shameless and shameful in your approach to your customers.
The majority of your profit now in the UK is retail banking and it really does indicate that you don’t care.’
She said she was worried about the impact of closures on those who fell victim to fraud and needed help.
‘I’m just really worried about particular people in society who are absolutely scammed out of existence and turn nowhere.’
Harriett Baldwin, the chairman of the committee, said the comments demonstrated the strength of feeling among MPs.
‘I do send a message to all of you to go back and make sure that cash access and this whole process of hubs is working effectively because from our point of view it isn’t,’ she said.
Maru said that at Barclays, branch usage was down by 65 per cent while app use had risen by 120 per cent. ‘We’ve been responding to behaviour shift in consumer demand and expectations.’
