Are banking 'hubs' the answer to branch closures?

A growing number of "banking hubs" are being set up across the country in response to branch and cash machine closures in recent years.

The hubs offer basic banking services and access to cash and are shared by a number of high street banks, which rotate offering their services during the week.

A total of 81 have been opened across the country so far by bank-owned Cash Access UK, with plans announced this week for at least 15 more, including some in West Yorkshire.

But how useful are they? BBC News has spoken to people outside one of the most recent to open, in Ossett, near Wakefield.

Lorraine Butterworth was heading back to work when she spoke to us.

She had just spent a few minutes chatting to staff inside the branch.

Ms Butterworth said she had been into the hub “a couple of times”, and that staff had helped her “very much".

“The main thing is if you can draw cash out, and the limits that you’ve got," she said.

Ms Butterworth, 62, said she had planned her visit, knowing it would be her bank offering services on that particular day.

She said she hoped the hub remained in Ossett as she did not want to have to travel to Wakefield to manage her money.

Brian Good, 76, said he was visiting Ossett from Hornsea, on the Yorkshire coast.

He said he used a banking hub there “all the time”, adding that living in a small town with so many cash machines having been lost, "it’s absolutely ideal".

“If I need any advice I can go to my named bank and get advice from them, which I have done,” he added.

But for some, it seems the service is less convenient.

Sharon Petre was visiting her cousin Barbara Dunford in Ossett.

Ms Dunford, 74, told us she had previously been to the banking hub with her husband.

But, while he was able to withdraw money from his debit account, she was unable to take money from her savings account.

"It makes it a bit awkward," she said.

Sharon, 64, lives in the village of Thornhill, near Dewsbury, and her bank was not covered by the new hub in Ossett.

“They’re shutting another bank in Dewsbury, so I think there’ll be one left," she said.

“I do do online banking, but you have to go to a bank sometimes if you need to speak to somebody.”

She said she thought more people would start to keep more cash at home, like her mother had done.

“When they [the banks] are open, they’re open till, what, half past two in the afternoon?”

“Banking hubs are a good idea, but I think there has to either be more, or more facilities.”

And for Andy Mearns, it was a similar story.

He had made his second visit to the banking hub, which he said he found “useful".

But he added: “It was better with the other one, wasn’t it? The proper one.

“It only opens Monday to Friday, so what do people do on a weekend? Nowt.”

Other people in Ossett told the BBC they did not even know the banking hub was there.

Linda Spendelow, who was walking past, told us recent bank closures meant a “personal touch” had been lost.

“You can do it online, but a lot of people can’t do it online.”

The 59-year-old’s neighbour was one of those people, she said, and was “really struggling".

“They’ve lost touch with reality, have the banks.”

Meanwhile, Carol Roberts said she banked with the Halifax, which closed its branch in Ossett earlier this year.

She had never used the banking hub, but had made a trip into town just to have a look at it.

Ms Roberts, 70, said: “We knew it was going to happen when the Halifax said they were going to close and there would be a banking hub.

“I wanted to speak to somebody over the phone on Friday. It took me 20 minutes to get through, and they were just very unhelpful.

"Normally, I would have just come to Ossett, walked into a bank, and they would have sorted it.

“I needed a bank on Friday and it wasn’t the Halifax’s day on Friday."

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