IT is obviously difficult to find anything at all encouraging in the relentless cost-cutting drives of the big banks, from the perspective of customers, staff or society.

But it was heartening this week to watch Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan being grilled by MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee at Westminster over the taxpayer-backed institution’s huge branch-closure programme north of the Border.

Mr McEwan seemed to attempt a conciliatory approach with his opening statement but the MPs, thankfully, were having none of it.

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The political reaction to branch closures has varied dramatically in its intensity over the years.

If you go back less than 20 years, the closure of even a tiny number of branches could be a real political hot potato. And so it should be given the impact on communities.

However, over the years following the global financial crisis of 2008/09, it seemed that many politicians and others who might normally have been expected to intervene to a greater extent were, slowly but surely, becoming inured to branch closures.

Maybe it was because the two banks which required multi-billion-pound taxpayer bail-outs, Bank of Scotland owner Lloyds Banking Group and Royal, were in the process of cutting tens of thousands of jobs.

Announcements of huge job cuts throughout their operations became common-place, although no less lamentable for that given their effect on loyal, hard-working and often long-serving employees. Staff who were in no way to blame for the global financial crisis. Few things were protected as the axe fell, although huge pay packets for the top brass were preserved. It appeared, as branch-closure announcements came thick and fast from the UK’s big banks, that many politicians had decided such moves were almost inevitable.

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As an external observer, it seemed that the banks sensed that they might be getting towards the stage where they had carte blanche on branch closures. That they could pretty much do as they liked on this front without encountering anything much in the way of the type of serious and sustained opposition which might cause them to have to moderate their behaviour.

The fact Lloyds and Royal had received state backing did not appear to make them any more reflective about the impact of branch closures and other cost-cutting on the taxpayers who had bailed them out.

The trade unions obviously continued to make very valid points about the impact on staff, customers and communities. But big bank bosses have too often, over the years and decades, seemed to disregard what have been good points and simple truths outlined by the unions. The type of good points which, in a different world, might be harnessed by more open-minded and less adversarial big company bosses to improve the running of their businesses and boost customer and staff satisfaction.

As opposition from politicians appeared to wane, banks’ announcements of branch closures seemed ever-less apologetic and far bolder. As with Royal’s most recent Scottish branch-closure programme, they also became increasingly dramatic in terms of scale.

You could have been forgiven for thinking that, at times, the banks were dismissing those lamenting branch closures as being out of touch and not keeping up with the flashy times on the technology front.

Customers were these days, we were told, interested in being able to do their banking on their mobile phones on journeys to and from work. An interesting notion surely for those in parts of rural Scotland hit by Royal’s branch-closure programme. In such places, it may be difficult to get enough of a mobile-phone signal to send a three-word text message, let alone interact with an online banking application.

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Royal announced late last year that it would close 62 Scottish branches –significantly in excess of one-third of its network of more than 150 north of the Border. It had about 300 branches in Scotland only about five years ago.

In February, Royal, in the face of fierce protest, granted a temporary reprieve to 10 of the 62 branches.

However, Mr McEwan was giving no assurances over these branches this week.

He said that, setting aside the decision to be made by the year-end on these 10 branches, Royal would not look at the size of its Scottish network again until at least 2020. Whoop-de-doo!

This might have seemed eye-catching to some when a snap on this pledge popped up on the screen of Reuters’ financial terminal.

And it probably did take maybe a couple of seconds for it to dawn that Mr McEwan was not talking about some Arthur C Clarke-style timescale here – in terms of him writing ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ in 1968 – but about a year that is less than 20 months away. The pledge becomes even less impressive when you consider Royal has still to conclude its current huge Scottish branch-closure programme announced late last year.

It was almost surreal to hear Mr McEwan tell the Scottish Affairs Committee about how Royal staff were, in areas in which branches were closing, “escorting” the venerable institution’s customers to nearby post offices to show them how they could do their transactions there. The postmasters were delighted, he effused. He was also, true to form, most upbeat about Royal’s “app”. The big problem is that such a banking channel, while appealing to many, will not be of any use or interest to large portions of Royal’s customer base. The bank needs to serve all of its customers. And surely most customers would prefer a permanent branch than a mobile van which comes round say every week.

The Federation of Small Businesses has led a commendable campaign to warn of the impact of branch closures on its members.

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Research by the Centre for Responsible Banking & Finance at the University of St Andrews has recently begun to examine the issue of bank branch geography and access to finance in the UK. This work suggests strongly that small and medium-sized enterprises which are more geographically remote from bank branches suffer greater restrictions on accessing finance.

Mr McEwan’s short-timeframe 2020 reassurance amounts to no more than a hill of beans. But at least he and his peers will be in no doubt, after this week’s hearing, that some politicians are keeping a very close eye on the detrimental impact of banks’ relentless branch-closure programmes.