A prominent Dundee business owner has issued a dire warning about the huge impact RBS branch closures will have.
The Royal Bank of Scotland announced this week it is to shutdown its Kingsway Circus branch, in Downfield, as part of a country-wide spate of closures.
Pub and joinery business owner Stephen Tosh has warned his companies might need to move away from cash due to the difficulties posed by being unable to do daily banking.
RBS will shut down the branch on October 8.
The move is expected to see hundreds of jobs lost in Scotland, with the bank confirming if voluntary redundancies could not fulfil, compulsory sackings would need to take place.
Warning closure will be ‘incredibly difficult’
Mr Tosh, who is the proprietor of the Nine Maidens on Laird Street and The Downfield on Strathmartine Road, warned of the additional risks brought to him and his staff as a result of the closure.
He said it would be unsafe to transport the takings through to the city centre branch, which has been spared from the RBS cull, due to the large sums involved.
“If we roll over and just let this happen, banks like RBS will just continue to do this.
“It is incredibly difficult for us as a business to do our daily banking at the city centre branch.
“We have to take huge sums of money to deposit — which we are charged for the pleasure of doing — and it is less than safe to transport that through the city, then walk into the city centre branch.
“It will turn a 20 minute daily job into at least a two hour task.
“And will add costs in petrol and parking charges too.
“This branch closure will have a huge impact.
“We may have to change the way we do business.
“It could mean not being able to take cash as often as we do for payment.
“Older people quite often pay in cash, whether it is from their pensions or saved over time.
“Branch closures effectively take this option away from them.
“I just cannot understand it. It’s the last local banking branch around this area.
“People have chosen to bank with them because of the location. There is always a queue of folk waiting at the front door ready to use the branch every morning.
“Banks like RBS need to think about the knock-on effects closing branches brings.”
Number of branch closures
The Kingsway Circus announcement follows a number of other branch closures by RBS in recent years.
In the last five years, the Stobswell, West End and Broughty Ferry branches have all closed.
Branches in Perth, Kinross, Aberfeldy and Pitlochry have also shut recently.
A third of RBS is owned by the tax-payer, which was bailed out with public cash in 2008.
Conversation