Next month the last bank in my local high street shuts down, but why should you or I care? After all, I bank online and I expect you do too. Furthermore, it is not even my bank that is closing.
However I do care that the last bank is going, because a high street without a bank is oddly one without a focus. A high street made up of coffee shops and charity outlets is hardly worth walking down – and you cannot shop online for everything.
Banks say they close branches because they are not needed: the footfall is too low to sustain them. Last week I was forced to drive to the next town to go to the bank (my local branch shut a few years ago). It was busy: there were queues for the cashiers, the inquiry desk, and even the automatic paying-in machines. At least I could get there easily, but plenty of elderly people do not drive and public transport is often not great.
Yes, they can use the Post Office if they do not like cash machines, but if they want anything more complicated – face-to-face advice for example – they have to travel.
It is so easy for big businesses to forget about the elderly who lose out the most when banks shut down. If they do not want to use cash machines or contactless cards because they feel unsafe, does anyone care?
You and I might be happy enough to do these things – but what about your parents? And when we are elderly and unwilling to drive long distance or with eyes less sharp than they used to be, will we be happy to do everything online? Of course banks are not charities. But go back a decade and some of them had to turn to the charity of taxpayers, some of whom are now suffering the most from the slew of branch closures.
Motives behind advice?
Financial advisers, of course, are also not charities. So it was heart-warming to read a survey the other week from National Savings & Investments saying that most financial advisers will advise on portfolios of £50,000 or more. Excellent news: and furthermore, 38 per cent would even offer help on portfolios of £25,000 or less. That is what we need: help for the little man and woman, not just the plutocrats.
But then I read the footnotes: NS&I’s Financial Advice Barometer is emailed to “around 4,000 financial advisers each quarter”. Those who respond “are entered into a prize draw for a chance to win an iPad mini”.
For the January survey referred to here “877 people opened the email and 78 people responded to the survey, giving a 9 per cent response rate”. Ah. I am feeling a little bit less heart-warmed now. Good odds on winning an iPad, though.
Bereavement support lacks empathy
Here is a great example of kicking someone when they are down: A year ago, changes were brought in affecting payments to those widowed when their children were young. Under the previous system, widowed parents got a payment of £2,000 upfront followed by up to £113.70 a week (based on the deceased’s National Insurance contributions) until their children are grown up. Now, parents widowed after April 2017 get a lump sum of £3,500 then monthly payments of £350 lasting just 18 months.
About 3,500 parents widowed between April 2017 and January 2018 get this new Bereavement Support Payment. Apart from the cut in the amount paid, what upsets some of those affected is that the government seems to know exactly how long it takes to get over the death of a partner and move on with life.
The Department for Work & Pensions said the new system “restores fairness to the system and focuses support during the 18 month period after a loved one dies when someone may need it most”.
I wonder how they arrived at such a precise period for mourning? Speaking as someone whose husband died nine years ago this month (and thus came under the previous benefits system) I was grieving for far longer than 18 months.
Charlotte Beugge is a freelance journalist
