Greater Manchester to bear the brunt of ‘disappointing’ RBS closures

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) confirmed plans for a raft of closures on Tuesday (May 1), with hundreds of jobs set to go.

Around 30 of the branches getting the chop are in Greater Manchester.

Responding to the news, Robert Downes, development manager for Greater Manchester and North Cheshire at the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said the closures will have a negative ripple effect on the region’s high streets.

He said: “This fresh round of closures will hurt high streets all over the North West, but particularly in Greater Manchester, at a time when thousands of small firms are already struggling.

“When a bank branch goes it means less footfall, less cash in the local economy and less revenue for local small firms as a result.”

He added: “If firms can’t easily deposit takings it makes them targets for theft. Many small business owners have built up relationships with branch personnel that go back years – that’s not something that can be replaced by an app.”

Blasting the announcement as “really disappointing”, he continued: “To see even flagship branches in Manchester city centre being put to the sword in this latest cull shows the bank’s not thinking about customers, just its own bottom line.

“In the space of barely a week we’ve had the TSB IT fiasco, and now this. Yet again the banks are making headlines for all the wrong reasons.”

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