Hawick - Like Thousands Of Other Communities - Deserves MUCH Better!

As usual, far too little, far too late.

Hawick lost two bank branches - and their 24/7 ATMs - in 2025.

The last bank branch in town, a Lloyds Banking Group Bank of Scotland branch, will close - and have its 24/7 ATM removed - next month.

This will leave Hawick High Street with no bank branch and no 24/7 ATM.

And all the town is getting is a “temporary” Banking Hub until a permanent site is found.

This temporary Banking Hub is NOT on the High Street and presumably will have no 24/7 ATM.

Cash Access UK should have been instructed by LINK Scheme Ltd and the Financial Conduct Authority to use one of the deserted bank branches in Hawick High Street as a PERMANENT Banking Hub.

The obvious - and correct solution - in such circumstances is for the closing “last branch in town” to automatically become the new Banking Hub, with a 24/7 ATM.

I am sure LINK Scheme Ltd and the Financial Conduct Authority will say “we have no powers to order Cash Access UK [owned by four of the Big Five UK Banks] to take over abandoned bank branches”.

THEN GET THOSE POWERS FROM HM Treasury.

HM Treasury has FAILED to safeguard 24/7 cash access and FAILED to safeguard community banking services.

Thousands of communities around the UK are suffering as a result of those failures.

Do the public from those communities - millions of them - have to come to 1 Horseguards to make HM Treasury understand the extent of their failures?

Just let us know.

Source: thesouthernreporter.co.uk/business/access-to-cash-will-continue-in-borders-town-as-banks-close-their-doors-8961538