UK Post Office and banks join trial to improve cash access in small communities

Use of coins and notes fell sharply during coronavirus pandemic as consumers switched to digital transactions

People line up outside the Post Office in Cambridge. Post offices could offer a lifeline to those in remote locations looking to access banking services. Photo by Edward Crawford/SOPA Images/LightRockShow more

The UK is looking to improve access to cash for millions of people and small businesses by setting up banking points in remote locations and ensuring basic needs are met.

Britain's state-owned Post Office will play a major part in the plan by sharing its premises with banks in remote places.

The trial will begin in three locations, in the English towns of Ampthill in Bedfordshire and Rochford in Essex, and at Cambuslang, near Glasgow in Scotland.

Martin Kearsley, the Post Office's banking director, told the Financial Times that the joint branches would make banking as important a part of the Post Office as its traditional mail and parcel business.

He said that it had "a social and moral responsibility to focus on cash and banking as one of our main strategic pillars".

Access to cash became a challenge for people living in remote parts of the UK after almost half of bank branches in Britain were closed down between 2000 and 2019.

The use of cash is declining in the UK, with coronavirus accelerating the trend, resulting in a 71 per cent drop in demand for notes and coins from autoteller machines during the first wave of the pandemic between March and mid-April, according to the National Audit Office.

Some businesses now refuse cash payments to help curb the spread of coronavirus, while consumers increasingly prefer digital payments to avoid contact with notes and coins.

In September, the UK's Royal Mint said it would stop producing 2p and £2 coins for at least 10 years as demand for cash dwindles and a coin mountain lies in storage.

However, the declining use of cash is an issue for sections of society reliant on the payment method, including more than a million UK adults who do not have a bank or building society current account.

The Post Office's three new banking points are part the Community Access to Cash Pilots (CACP) initiative funded by the banking and finance industry, which is working to create ways to help keep cash sustainable.

In September, the CACP said it was planning nine pilot cash locations to help  improve cash access and acceptance.

The trials at the three sites in England and Scotland, which are in dedicated high street retail spaces, combine the cash transaction facilities of a post office with access to the banking services offered by retail banks.

Natalie Ceeney, chairwoman of the CACP, said in September that cash remains critically important to both individuals and communities across the UK.

“The rapid switch to digital is threatening the viability of today’s cash infrastructure. This can lead to consumers left without cash access or forced to leave their own village or town to get cash elsewhere, often at significant inconvenience and cost," she said.

"In turn, local retailers lose custom, as consumers spend their cash elsewhere, and then struggle to bank their cash takings without shutting up shop to drive to a bank branch some miles away, losing revenue and frustrating customers."

Pop-up Post Office services are also proposed to allow communities access to basic banking services over a Post Office counter within small shops, as well as widespread cashback from stores, restaurants and pubs.

In October, the government said Britain's shops would offer cashback without consumers making a purchase to increase access to notes and coins.

When local shops accept and dispense cash, it is then cycled through local communities, reducing the need to transport and distribute money through cash centres and, in turn, cutting the associated costs.

Last year, consumers received £3.8 billion ($5.13bn) of cash back when paying for items at a till – the second most-used method for withdrawing cash in the UK behind ATMs.

Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, said its branches already provide critical cash deposit and withdrawal services for millions of personal and business customers every week.

"Everyone should have the right to use cash and be able to easily and securely access it wherever is most convenient to them," he said.