By James Simons
Royal Bank of Scotland is to close a quarter of its branches and axe nearly 700 jobs in a move unions claim could signal the end of face-to-face banking.
The announcement by the bank will result in 62 RBS branches and 197 NatWest outlets closed by mid-2018, the eye of media.com has heard. Over 1,000 staff will be affected.
RBS says it intends to limit the number of redundancies to 680 by redeploying the remaining staff. That reduction hardly makes any difference to a situation that will see hundreds loose their jobs due to no fault of their own.
Earlier this weeks, branch closures and job cuts across the country were announced by Lloyds and Yorkshire Building Society. An RBS spokesman told THE EYE OF MEDIA.COM: “More and more of our customers are choosing to do their everyday banking online or on mobile.
“Since 2014 the number of customers using our branches across the UK has fallen by 40 per cent and mobile transactions have increased by 73 per cent over the same period.
“Over five million customers now use our mobile banking app and one in five only bank with us digitally.”
The series of closures in the country is a sign of some form of banking crisis in the UK where funds are becoming highly limited . Ther huge uncertainties that have accompanied Brexit has been influential in these sudden changes. The capricious state of inflation since the Uk’s referendum that saw Britain agree to leave the EU, combined with the tough negotiations for trade deals between the Uk and EU countries has impacted several sections of the economy.
The Uk economy has coped with the challenges reasonably well, after several heacups in overall economic growth. Signs that the UK is finally prepared to break the deadlock with a whapping £44bn divorce bill is gradually changing ther landscape of what previously appeared to be a dead end. However, caution is still to be exercised because Downing street has already indicated that ”nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.
BETRAYAL
Union Unite has categorically condemned the move, describing it as a “betrayal” , attacked the Government for allowing the closures to proceed.
The union’s national officer Rob MacGregor expressed deep pessimism about the move, saying that it would spell the end of banking in branches. He told THE EYE OF MEDIA.COM:
“The Royal Bank of Scotland has decided to decimate its bank branch network in a manner that will damage the banking system. It is absolutely ludicrous that such a step has been taken that will impact thousands of staff in the country and adversely affect the banking system.
“This announcement will forever change the face of banking in this country resulting in over a thousand staff losing their jobs and hundreds of high streets without any banking facilities.
“Nobody understands why the Government signing off this alarming branch closure programme?”
The timing of the announcement is bad news for affected employees whose Christmas will not be as festive as those established in secure jobs. Starting a new year with no job or knowledge that your job is about to seized from you due to no fault of yours is very difficult for anyone to stomach. Unemploymernt rates have steadily been dropping in the UK, but these closures or associated job losses will send thousands back on the unemployment queue. Some provision must surely be in place to prepare alternative employment for them. 72% of RBS money is paid by tax payers, so surely the British public must have some voice in this.
The Uk Governhas been contacted for comment.