UK Missing 1000 Banking Hubs!
Posted on: 04/08/2025The yawning shortfall in the number of Banking Hubs is undermining many communities around UK, though that will be no consolation to Sioned Williams in the Swansea Valley.
Hundreds of communities that should have Banking Hubs are not simply getting them.
Taking a wild guess, it would seem likely that by the end of 2025 LINK Scheme Ltd will have nominated slightly more than the 250 sites for Banking Hubs that Cash Access UK have said they will open by the end of 2025. Cash Access UK will then note that some of the sites they have already opened ( many are in temporary premises) are not very busy and move them to provide the Banking Hubs in the small number of locations above 250 that LINK will by then have nominated.
So the number will be kept down to 250 by the end of 2025, no matter what.
After that, LINK and Cash Access UK have three years to work out how to avoid opening any more than 100 additional Banking Hubs by 2029.
Enough said.
All of this points to the fact that the “system” for nominating Banking Hubs clearly doesn’t work.
Their will be a debate in Parliament soon after the Summer recess on the proposal that every time a last branch in a community is listed for closure, a Banking Hub must be automatically provided by Cash Access UK.
This would be retrospective, with all last branch closures since 2015 covered automatically and closures before that date subject to community appeal.
The Payment Choice Alliance has calculated that the minimum number of Banking Hubs required in the UK is 1200, not the 250 expected by the end of 2025 or the wholly inadequate total of 350 promised by 2029.
Whatever it takes, thousands of communities around the UK WILL get the financial services touchpoints they WANT and NEED.
Who says so?
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