Banks closing.

There is no choice here, everyone has to pay whether they use the bank or just the online services. I like using cash and discussing investments, insurance etc. face to face, so I am grateful even though I moan about the monthly charge sometimes.

As I posted on the other thread, small business- your local hairdresser, coffee shop owner and so on use a bank. A building society is not able to offer the same sort of account.

There used to be four banks in our town of 15,000 people. Now there is one and I am grateful it is the bank I have been using for 60 years. Yes, I use on line banking but just now and again I need to speak with someone face to face and actually was in my bank 2 days ago. It is just a ten minute walk.
However, my husband's nearest branch means a 35 minute drive. He is in the process of changing his accounts over to my bank.
My BIL's nearest branch is in the next town and he doesn't drive. Busses run every 2 hours. He is also changing to my bank, the only one remaining in our town.
I'm sure that many other folk find the same inconveniences and I hope that they are also changing to our bank and that it will remain.
My concern is for those as they get older and perhaps no longer able to use online and will need more help, no longer driving, no nearby branch.

I have heard that the Post Office will deal with the accounts of most banks affairs but think that would only be for simple stuff like lodgements though I could be mistaken.

I live in London and there is only one bank open and that is a couple of miles from me. I do bank online but occasionally I do need help being partially sighted and the queue is out on the pavement. Not pleasant in this weather.

We don’t have any banks left in our town just a building society but that got ram raided so that’s also closed at the moment.
I expect banks have closed in the high street because not enough people used them. Can’t remember the last time I went to a bank must be over 10 years ago.

Because mokryna a lot of people in the UK bank online, so it’s uneconomic to keep a physical unit and, in my experience, the French are more reluctant to adopt such practices. It’s not so long ago, definitely 2018, cheques were still in common use in Françe and your unions are very résistent to adopting practices than inevitably mean jobs are lost.

Maggiemaybe ‘The usual bank charges’ maybe to service debt. I personally don’t have any.
You say you have two open banks but I don’t understand why the English banks closed in a population of 23,000 in my ‘home’ town.

No, there have been threads about banks and post office closures where I ask what people use them for but nobody seems to answer, I cannot remember the last time I used either.

Goodness, no.

We do still have two banks in our town - twice the size of yours - but I’ve only needed to go into one once in the last 15 years or so, and that was just to have a form signed and stamped at the request of my German pension provider. Everything’s done online, including insurance and investment. The Post Office also deals with some banking requirements.

What are “the usual bank charges”? In effect my bank pays me for having the account, not the other way round - I pay them £2 a month, but only to get around a fiver back as cashback on certain household bill direct debits.

I appreciate that some people do still need a bank nearby, and for their sakes I’m glad we do still have some, but from what I’ve heard there are rarely more than a couple of customers in there. I can’t imagine what keeps 10 banks occupied all day long in such a small town? One bank per 1600 people?