Research highlights need for Post Bank
1st September 2011
CWU general secretary
Billy Hayes has welcomed this week's Consumer Focus report
which calls for an increase in post office banking services.
The study - Counter Measures: delivering access to current accounts for all at the Post Office - urges all UK banks to give customers comprehensive access to their accounts through the Post Office, arguing that its 11,800-strong network is ideally placed to meet the demand of millions of people for a local bank branch.
Some four million people already use post offices for transactions with their own bank, but two leading banks - HSBC and Santander - do not allow this.
Among the banks who do work with the Post Office, the picture varies - some do offer the full range, while others only permit a limited number of transactions.
The survey*, which was carried out for the consumer rights watchdog by pollsters YouGov, concluded that the current four million could rise to 18 million if every bank allowed its own customers to carry out the full range of transactions at post offices.
"This research clearly
indicates that demand for local banking is there and we welcome
this study and the evidence it provides," said CWU general
secretary Billy Hayes.
"Of course the suggestions put forward by Consumer Focus would certainly improve matters for the public, for the Post Office and for our members working in them," Billy continued. "But the real solution would be for the Government to set up a new Post Office bank - the Post Bank that the CWU and a broad range of other organisations have been campaigning for.
"This would not only meet the demand that Consumer Focus's research has identified, it could also boost small businesses and tackle financial exclusion."
*Consumer Focus commissioned YouGov to undertake a UK-wide online survey of 2,116 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between January and March and results were weighted to ensure that they were representative.
