Yesterday, all the media carry a similar story, that UK banks will be forced, on pain of a fine, to ensure that free cash withdrawals and deposits must be available within one mile for people living in urban areas and three miles otherwise. Given that banks continue to close branches, it is difficult to see how that is to be accomplished. The Post Office does offer some basic facilities for access to accounts at most UK banks, but government has over the years (apart from a brief respite during the coalition) presided over the closure of post offices and there has been no sign of it encouraging opening new ones. Even before the Covid-19 epidemic struck and there was a large switch from cash to contactless card, many well-populated townships in Wales were without either. For instance, Resolven in the Neath valley, with a population of over two thousand, has to rely on a mobile post office which stops a couple of times a week in a car park. There is one free cash machine, in a convenience store. There will be reluctance on the part of the banks and the post office to reverse the situation.
This all looks like another gesture, like the ban on IC-engined vehicles, on the part of the government which has no idea about how it is to be put into practice.
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