Cash Access UK officially opens doors to 100th banking hub
We have today reached an incredible milestone with the official opening of the 100th banking hub in Darwen, Lancashire.
Darwen is the 100th banking hub to officially open and was recommended a hub following a community request after bank branch closures in the town.
Like other hubs across the country, Darwen’s offers a counter service operated by the Post Office, where customers of all major banks can carry out regular cash transactions, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. It also offers a Community Banker service where customers can talk to their own bank about more complicated issues on the day their bank is in the hub. Darwen’s hub is located in the heart of the town centre on Market Street.
Alongside today’s 100th hub opening, Cash Access UK can also confirm 100 deposit services will be live by the end of the year. Deposit services allow small businesses to readily deposit and access cash either through deposit ATMs, where customers from different banks can readily bank notes or enhanced Post Offices, where there is a separate counter for banking customers.
As part of these milestones, Cash Access UK has undertaken new research to understand how the opening of the banking hubs have improved local high streets. Focussing on Brixham (Devon) and Rochford (Essex), two of the earliest hubs to open, the feedback is overwhelmingly positive with three in 10 people saying they visit and spend more on the local high street because of the hub. Almost half (47%) of businesses surveyed said they have experienced an increase in footfall thanks to the banking hub. This is despite the fact that, UK wide, weekday footfall has fallen 18% compared with pre-Covid levels.
Banking hubs and deposit services are delivered by Cash Access UK and come about following the closure of any bank branch across the country. This assessment is conducted by LINK, the UK’s cash access and ATM network, who independently review a community to understand whether the closure will affect access to cash for locals. A community can also ask to LINK to carry out an assessment of the community if they feel they need better access to cash.
To date, 126 deposit services and 176 banking hubs have been recommended.
Gareth Oakley, CEO, Cash Access UK: “Thanks to the exceptional industry collaboration from the banks who support us, I’m delighted that in a such short space of time we have been able to successfully open 100 banking hubs, as well as deliver 100 deposit services. It’s been a particularly busy year, this week alone we have officially opened five hubs. Our hubs are proving extremely popular which shows that access to cash and banking services remains vital for millions of individuals across the UK, despite more people choosing to bank and make payments digitally. We're delighted to have reached this latest milestone and will continue our work to bring more of these services to the communities that need them most.”
Neil Brocklehurst, Acting Chief Executive at Post Office, said: "I am thrilled that, as a result of the hard work of our partners Cash Access UK, our own hub team colleagues, and our postmasters who run the Hubs, we have today officially opened the 100th Banking Hub. Together, we are on our way to meeting the Government's target to open 350 Hubs by the end of the Parliament and I want to thank every postmaster and their teams for making the running of Banking Hubs possible. Postmasters like Asif at Darwen are helping to secure a sustainable future for cash in communities across the country and I look forward to seeing postmasters operate many more Hubs in the near future."