Branch closures lead to considerable political pressure on banks to ensure that communities can still access face-to-face banking services, such as depositing cash and cheques, and paying bills. The Post Office had more branches than all the banks combined, and many banks had agreements with the Post Office to offer some services. However, the services provided varied from bank to bank, and from Post Office to Post Office, which led to confusion for customers, and made it difficult to publicise the services offered.
Liaising with ministers at HMT and the Department of Business, we negotiated an industry-wide agreement, so that service offering was standardised across participating banks and across the Post Office network. This led to a sharp rise in the use of face-to-face banking services at the Post Office, and reduced the political pressure on banks about branch closures.