Edition 16 - The Big Banks ‘Porkie’ About Internet Banking!

A Payment Choice Alliance Newsletter

The Big Banks ‘Porkie’ About Internet Banking!

The Big 5 UK Banks - we won’t call them ‘High Street Banks’ because they are not to be found on many High Streets today - pretend that internet banking has made the shocking fall in bank branch numbers inevitable.

THIS IS COMPLETE AND UTTER NONESENSE.

How can we prove that?

By looking at a Mutual, the type of enterprise that considers looking after their members/customers rather important.

Nationwide Building Society - just such a Mutual - in 1997 became the first major UK financial institution to provide internet banking to customers.

Today, Nationwide Building Society has a brilliant internet service and a superb app.

All Nationwide branches must have been closed then, because internet/app banking has made them redundant, as claimed by the Big 5 Banks?

NOT EXACTLY.

In 1997, Nationwide Building Society had 150 branches.

In 2025, RIGHT NOW, Nationwide Building Society has over 600 branches, FOUR TIMES the number they had in 1997.

And cash - only needed by a desperate 1.5 million Brits, according to the vocal Big 5 banks - is surely on the way out, so Nationwide Building Society must have far fewer ATMs than they had in 1997, when 70% plus of payments were made in cash?

NO!

Nationwide Building Society, in 2025, RIGHT NOW, has SIX TIMES as many ATMs as they had in 1997.

And in 2009, when UK banks such as RBS were on their knees, begging the UK Government to use £Billions of the British public’s money to rescue them, did Nationwide Building Society need to be rescued?

NO!

The MUTUAL stood firm, unaided, because they had avoided the casino banking and subprime mortgages favoured by the Big 5 banks.

Meantime, the avaricious Big 5 used the excuse of internet banking to accelerate their plans to close branches. Those plans made it inconvenient for the banks to have ATMs and to handle cash generally, so their war on cash also began.

All this explains why the British public have suffered TWO bank branch closures every day since 2015 and lost SEVEN ATMs every day since 2018.

These branch and ATM losses have left THOUSANDS of UK communities without face-to-face banking and convenient cash access.

THIS MUST AND WILL BE STOPPED AND REVERSED - AND THE PCA HAS TOLD THE GOVERNMENT HOW TO DO IT!

More news next month!

ATMs FORCED TO CHARGE!

These are the sparkling ATM’s at Brighton Railway Station in September 2025. They used to be some of the busiest Free-To-Use ATMs in the country.

BUT NOT ANYMORE

Link, the UK ATM Network funded and controlled by the always generous Big 5 UK banks, came up with an unwanted ‘World First’ by announcing in 2017 that there were too many ATMs in the UK - were the British public complaining? And that the already paltry payments made to ATM operators were to be slashed so that the number of ATMs would be drastically reduced.

Today, LINK pay as little as 25% of the fee for cash withdrawals typically paid to ATM operators in most of the UK’s European neighbours. Sadly, this weaponisation of ATM payments in the UK, with a deliberate reduction in real terms in their value, has led to the 3 Brighton Station ATMs in the photograph being forced to switch to Pay-To-Use (PTU).

This is NOT the fault of the ATM operators.

The PCA estimates that the Brighton Station ATMs will between them have lost more than 300,000 cash withdrawals - so customers - per annum because of the move to PTU.

At todays average value of an ATM cash withdrawal this equates to around £25 million in cash NOT being withdrawn from these 3 ATMs each year.

Of course, these are only 3 of the around 20,000 Free-To-Use ATMs that have been lost since 2018, a rate of SEVEN per day.

In total, the lost 20,000 Free-To-Use ATMs would have been achieving around 600 million cash withdrawals each year, delivering at least £50 Billion cash to the British public.

Some of those lost withdrawals will have switched to other ATMs - BUT many will have been lost to card and digital payments, as the British public in some cases succumb to a combination of less convenient cash access and the enticement techniques employed by those hyping alternative payment methods.

Make no mistake, the reduction in Free-To-Use ATM numbers caused by the weaponising of payments made to ATM operators by LINK, has significantly reduced convenient cash access and pushed the British public towards card and digital transactions.

This has also had the effect of forcing the UK towards the ‘cashless’ society that 88% of the British public have made clear they do not want.

This has been quite deliberate - and it is totally UNACCEPTABLE.

THE PAYMENT CHOICE ALLIANCE HAS TOLD THE UK GOVERNMENT HOW FREE CASH ACCESS CAN BE RESTORED AT BRIGHTON STATION - AND EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE UK!

More news next month!

Trade Unions Support Cash; The British Public Support Cash; Time for the UK Government to LISTEN!

The Payment Choice Alliance was at the TUC Congress in Brighton in September. Watch this video to get a quick summary of how the event went for us!

Please Tell Your Friends About The Payment Choice Alliance

The PCA needs all the active supporters we can get! So please tell your friends about YOUR support for the Payment Choice Alliance - and urge them to visit our website to register THEIR support!

THANK YOU.

Take Action to Protect Cash

About Us

The Payment Choice Alliance, founded in 2014 and relaunched in 2023, is a campaigning organisation committed to ensuring the right of the British public to use cash is safeguarded by the passing of a Payment Choice Act.

The Act would give everyone in the UK the right to use their cash, when and where they choose.

The Payment Choice Alliance, which is run by committed volunteers, is also focused on ensuring every community in the UK has convenient cash withdrawal and deposit facilities. The provision of such facilities, along with the legal obligation of businesses to accept cash, will ensure cash remains a viable Payment Choice for the British public for as long as they want to use it.