Protests have been held in Fife calling for the Royal Bank of Scotland to halt its branch closure programme.
Unite staged demonstrations at sites across Scotland on Friday, branding RBS pledges to focus on “rebuilding trust” and “supporting our customers” as “shameless PR spin”.
Fife has seen RBS disappear from the likes of Elie, Aberdour, Crail, Kelty, Newburgh, Cowdenbeath, Cardenden, Dalgety Bay, Leven, Kirkcaldy, Cupar and Anstruther in recent years, and there has been real anger about the effect these closures have had on local people.
Activists gathered outside the RBS in Kirkcaldy’s Rosslyn Street on Friday morning and John Gillespie, from Unite’s Fife branch, said they had the support of many customers.
“RBS has closed many branches in Fife, in wee villages and towns, and what they’ve been doing is saying: ‘We’ll shut Cardenden, you can go to Cowdenbeath’ and then ‘We’ll shut Cowdenbeath, you can go to Kinross’ and now they are planning to shut Kinross,” he said.
“People are having to travel 20 or 30 miles and it’s the most vulnerable in society who are having to spend more money just to do their banking.
“They’ve said they’ll give a reprieve to 10 banks in rural areas but that’s not good enough – they have to reconsider their position.”
The protest was attended by Lesley Laird MP, who is due to meet RBS’s personal and business banking CEO Les Matheson next Friday.
The MP, who represents Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, has criticised any “back-door deal” which provides a stay of execution for a select number of branches.
Instead she called for RBS’s CEO Ross McEwan to go before the Scottish Select Affairs Committee and answer for all 62 branches earmarked for closure in Scotland.
She said: “This is a live debate. The public need answers as to why a 71 per cent nationally-owned bank and its CEO won’t come and explain its branch closure strategy to the Scottish Select Committee.
“By granting a reprieve to 10 branches they have conceded that the strategy is up for debate and this now needs further scrutiny – communities across Scotland deserve nothing less.
“The public also deserve to know what the Chairman of that Select Committee is going to do to make that happen – and when.”
She added: “RBS has posted a profit for the first time in a decade; a £752m sum described by bank bosses as “symbolic”.
“A decision to press ahead to close branches across the country – which would save just £9.5m –at this point is galling for customers and speaks volumes about RBS’s priorities.
“Branch banking provides the glue that supports many communities, and small business here in Kirkcaldy and around the country.
“At my meeting next week I’ll be advocating that RBS develop a wider bank strategy which really does have the customer at its heart.”
