AM Mick Bates has taken the protest over NatWest service cuts in Montgomeryshire to the chamber by hosting a short debate entitled “Helpful, local banking: a thing of the past for rural Wales.”
During his speech he called for collaboration between the government and banking sector to identify alternatives to cuts and closures of local services.
"For too many years rural areas have been the subject of systematic decline in our local services and most recently in Montgomeryshire we've seen service cuts at three local Natwest branches in Llanidloes, Llanfair Caereinion and Montgomery. It's all very well banks promoting helpful, local banking, but how much truth is there behind the taglines? he said.
"Since 1990, 40 per cent of bank branches have closed and 1,500 communities which have only one or two banks left are in the firing line for other cuts and closures. Keeping a bank presence keeps people spending locally, brings people into the community and supports local businesses so it crucial to creating sustainable communities.
"In contrast, the rationalisation and centralisation of the past decades has become a catalyst for the decline of our rural communities.
"As banks withdraw from the small villages to the small towns and then to the bigger towns, people are forced to travel further to access this service, increasing carbon emissions and taking away trade from local town centres. It disadvantages the elderly and vulnerable, or those on low incomes reliant on public transport who cannot access alternatives, leading to increased isolation.
"The excellent 'Campaign for Community Banking Services' has identified alternatives to branch cuts and closures, by sharing overheads and facilities and outsourcing some services, which could save the banks millions whilst at the same time maintaining a presence for individual banks within a community.
"With such huge stakes in the financial sector with Government support amounting to over a staggering £850 billion, central and local Government have a responsibility to talk to the banks to identify innovative ways of protecting high street banking. I will be writing to the Government and banking sector with this challenge to work together to reject the diktat of a top-down, one size fits all solution of closing local facilities and find new ways of building sustainable communities for the future."