RBS “community banker” plans branded a “slap in the face” as executives face Westminster grilling

Politicians, business leaders and unions have this week united in their fury against Royal Bank of Scotland’s programme of brutal branch culling as the pressure builds on the majority state-owned bank over the affair.

Today, Scotland’s SNP government described the decision by RBS bosses to replace 62 axed Scottish branches with just seven “community bankers” as “ridiculous”, and a “slap in the face for communities who are about to lose their bank branch”.

The comments come in a week that has already seen trade union Unite describe the Edinburgh-based banking giant’s December announcement to axe 259 UK branches, including the 62 in Scotland, as a “betrayal” which will devastate Scottish communities.

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has also weighed in on the controversy to call on politicians to act as RBS executives Les Matheson and Jane Howard face a grilling today over the closures in front of Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee.

In a submission to the Commons Committee, the small business campaign group says that: “it is essential that the UK Government establishes a minimum level of banking service provision…”

The intervention comes as SNP leaders reacted angrily to reports today via the Daily Record newspaper that the 73 per cent state-owned lender intends to service thousands of customers in rural locations with “community bankers”.

The plan was condemned with strong and immediate derision as it was pointed out that with the majority of the new roles based around the central belt -the furthest north being located around Glenrothes in Fife – someone from Tongue in Sutherland where the local RBS branch will be closing faced a 220 mile, five hour drive to the closest RBS representative.

SNP Westminster Leader, Ian Blackford said: “The decision by RBS to replace 62 axed Scottish branches with 7 “community bankers” is a slap in the face for the communities who are about to lose their bank branch, and it shows just how out of touch RBS is.

“13 Scottish towns are about to lose their only bank – which will have huge consequences for local people and local businesses.

“RBS have been misleading in making their case for these closures. They have said the branch in Kyle has only 51 regular customers for example, yet 25,000 transactions a year allows me to conclude that the branch is still busy.

“RBS must come clean and tell us the number of transactions in all the threatened branches. It is a disgrace that the Bank have not released the full figures and I call on them to publicly do so.

“The SNP will continue to campaign to keep these banks open, and I will continue to pressure the Prime Minister to do the right thing, and take action as a major shareholder. RBS has a duty to its customers, they really cannot repay our communities by withdrawing from them, and the Tories can’t turn their back on rural Scotland.”

Mr Blackford’s comments were echoed by Lyn Turner, Unite’s regional officer.

She said: “In the last decade the taxpayer paid out £45bn to bail out the failed executives of RBS in the financial crisis. The taxpayer still owns the bank and yet the pay-back for its rescue is now the proposed closure of one in three of its branches across Scotland.”

Ms Turner went on: “From day one, RBS has massaged the closure figures on the scale of job losses in Scotland, on the quality of replacement services and on what this will mean for the communities.

“They like to tell us that RBS is the Royal Bank for Scotland; it actually appears to be the Royal Bank for smoke and mirrors.”

RBS has maintained that its decision to close one-third of its branches in Scotland reflected the trend towards online banking, citing data that showed the use of its branches by customers had fallen 40 per cent since 2014.

However, the FSB’s Scottish Policy Convener Andy Willox said: “Local businesses and the communities they serve need banking services. The fact remains that cash is still the most frequently used consumer payment method and you can’t deposit cash using an app.

“Branch closures hit firms with additional costs – it becomes more difficult to manage cash flow and forces them to waste hours that should be spent doing business traipsing miles back and forth to a distant branch.

“Our new interactive map shows the extent to which the RBS branch network has been hacked back. But it’s not good enough that there are no official up-to-date figures on closures, planned closures and what’s left. We therefore need some investigation into the scale of the economic impact of these closures and reliable data on what remains.”