New research from BusinessComparison has surveyed UK SME leaders on their usage of local banks, and has found that a huge majority agree that there are fewer banks near their business than there were 10 years ago.
The survey asked owners and senior decision-makers at SMEs about how often they use their local bank and what worries them the most about bank closures. The results were also broken down by business leaders’ age and where they are based in the UK.
Key Findings:
74% agree that there are fewer bank branches near their business than there were 10 years ago.
21% of business leaders say it takes them or a staff member 31 to 45 minutes to visit the local bank - 51% say it takes them 11 to 30 minutes.
Philip Brennan, Founder and MD at BusinessComparison, comments:
“We were interested in finding out how leaders at SMEs feel about their access to local banks. The fact that three-quarters of the people we surveyed said they’ve noticed fewer branches confirms a pattern that has been going on anecdotally for some time."
“It was heartening to see how much of a sense of business community emerged from the survey results. For 88% of business leaders, the main concern when it came to bank closures was the impact on the local area, including other businesses.”
Business Owners’ Biggest Worries About Bank Closures
Only 12% of business leaders said they were not worried about bank closures in their area. 50% said they were concerned about businesses that take cash payments, and 34% were worried about the impact on customers.
How Businesses are Using Their Bank
One of the most popular reasons to visit the bank was to deposit any takings in cash - 46% of those surveyed said they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ go for this purpose. Collecting change from the bank was a slightly less commonly given reason - but while 47% of businesses never run out of change to give to customers, 13% do several times a week.
51% of business leaders said it takes them or a staff member 11 to 30 minutes to make a trip to the closest bank. 21% said that it takes between 31 and 45 minutes.
Going Digital