A survey of 1000 business leaders and senior decision makers at UK SMEs found that an overwhelming 88 percent were worried about how the loss of local banks would affect their area, including customers as well as other businesses. Most firms agree that there are fewer banks near their business than there were 10 years ago.
This is the outcome of a new study from BusinessComparison, who provide services comparison to SMEs, has investigated the impact of local bank branch closures.
In terms of impact, 21 percent of business leaders say it takes them or a staff member 31 to 45 minutes to visit the local bank. Furthermore, 51 percent say it takes them 11 to 30 minutes.
In terms of the use of digital services, 44 percent of business leaders said they ‘Always’ use digital banking services to complete routine tasks, with 34 percent answering ‘Often’.
However, cash services remain very popular. The majority of firms think the reduction in banks is a problem. The main reason to visit the bank was to deposit any takings in cash – 46 percent of those surveyed said they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ go for this purpose. Collecting change from the bank was a slightly less commonly given reason – but while 47 percent of businesses never run out of change to give to customers.
The research also looked at regional differences around the country and found that some areas have experienced the loss of more banks than others. Business leaders’ usage of banks also varied regionally, with some areas relying more heavily on their banks and making more frequent visits.
London was the region most likely to say they often take cash payments, at 40 percent, much higher than the national average at 24 percent. This region was also the most likely, overall, to have a member of staff visit the bank every day, at 62 percent.
Another outlier was the South East, the most likely to only take card payments, at 35 percent. That is more than 10 percent of the national average of 21 percent.
With demographics, younger business leaders were more likely to make in-person visits to the bank. Here, 45 percent of businesses run by 25 to 34-year-olds and 36 percent of those run by 35 to 44-year-olds send a staff member to the bank several times a week.
Philip Brennan, Founder and MD at BusinessComparison, explain in a statemen sent to Digital Journal: “We were interested in finding out how leaders at SMEs feel about their access to local banks. The fact that three-quarters of the people we surveyed said they’ve noticed fewer branches confirms a pattern that has been going on anecdotally for some time.”
Only 12 percent of business leaders said they were not worried about bank closures in their area. In terms of specifics, 50 percent said they were concerned about businesses that take cash payments, and 34 percent were worried about the impact on customers.
