IT has become a truism that ordinary members of the public suffered for the mistakes of banks and big business which led to the financial crash.
But the past tense is inappropriate. Not just because of the ongoing effects of austerity on the poor and vulnerable. But because the same process is still happening.
Take this chain of events: in January the construction services giant Carillion collapsed, and four months later Spanish Bank Santander blames Carillion’s fall for a profits slump and a 15 per cent drop in its income.
Now, Santander has decided how to respond: by closing 46 branches, ten of them in Scotland.
The bank says it has had a review and the branches are no longer viable, that it is more convenient for most of their customers to bank online.
That is undoubtedly true, but it is not true for all customers. For those without easy access to internet facilities and for many older customers, this is not the case.
We have been here before with Bank of Scotland owner Lloyds Banking Group’s closure plans and those of the Royal Bank of Scotland which are still being contested.
In the case of the latter, pledges to retain branches in areas where they were the “last bank in town” have not been fulfilled, while promised mobile banking vans turn out to stop for only 20 minutes, once a week in some locations.
The customers such banks negleect with these closures are often older, sometimes loyal for decades and deserve better. There may be costs to providing a proper alternative as traditional banking footfall declines – customers understand that. But Santander and other banks must show understanding too and offer meaningful solutions for those who suffer when branches close.
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