I am extremely concerned by the news that Lloyds, Halifax and the Bank of Scotland are going to stop customers depositing cheques at the Post Office.
The argument (from the banks) that customers will still be able to pay in cheques at a branch or scan them via the app on their phone – is quite frankly unacceptable!
Banks are closing at an alarming rate and those that remain open are often a significant distance away. There seems to have been little consideration on how this decision will affect those living in rural areas, the elderly or disabled people who will struggle to get to a branch, or the many customers who have no access to internet banking or who chose not to bank in this way.
On Friday I visited third generation outreach postmaster Jonathan Royle who runs services in community buildings across Plumley, Chelford, Little Budworth, Goostrey and Delamere. He said more than 130 cheques are paid in via his outreaches each week alone and is concerned how customers will pay in cheques going forward, given the change will also impact banking hubs as they are operated by the Post Office.
If these numbers were replicated nationally across the 11,805 Post Offices, that is 1.5 million cheques that customers will have to pay in elsewhere.
Postmasters are rightly frustrated that they have worked so hard to keep banking services accessible to the public in their high street or in rural locations and now banks want to dismantle the services being offered. The Post Office has already seen restrictions imposed on cash deposits for both personal and business banking and now another service is being taken away. I want to see more banking services available at our Post Offices not fewer and will support my sub postmasters in any way I can.
Since the meeting I’ve written to the relevant government minister at the Department for Business and Trade as well as the chief executives of Lloyds, Halifax and the Bank of Scotland asking them reconsider and maintain cheque depositing facilities at the Post Office. I’ve also asked for a full explanation of how banking hubs will be affected, as I am sure customers will be expecting hubs to offer the full range of facilities a branch would.
Stopping the Post Office taking cheques makes no sense but I fear it is at least in part driven by pure greed on the part of the banks. It is high time banks started putting the needs of their customers ahead of balance sheets.
