We are hearing from many places about banks’ disappearance in many small towns.
It’s something we’ve been looking into, and as part of our High Street Consultancy work in #Ripon with Ripon BID we brought together the good folks of OneBanx, Glory Global Solutions, Stuart Fearn MBE Lucilla Bathurst and many of the Ripon businesses to talk banking hubs.
The hubs mean businesses can deposit and take out cash, no matter who they bank with, and locals know they can do the same.
We heard from lots of businesses all with the same tale: “We still take cash from customers, we don’t want that to change.” “We struggle to deposit cash at the end of the day (some having to do an hour round trip every day to the nearest bank) and it impacts our businesses”.
Locals tell us they are more likely to visit the high street if they can withdraw and deposit cash too. So local economies are boosted.
In fact, cash purchases in the UK went up by 7% in the last 12 months compared to 2021 So it will be around for a good while yet.
So we are exploring whether banking hubs are a viable option to keep the wonderful city of Ripon thriving. Watch this space….
And a big thank you to Realtea for the hospitality and splendid cakes!
