Poorest UK areas have lost more free ATMs than richer ones, Which? report finds
Not only poor areas but also rural ones and therefore lets not get too side-lined into looking just at the city experience in terms of this story, which tells us:
Free-to-use cash machines are vanishing more quickly in deprived areas than in affluent ones, new research shows.
Which? said its analysis shows nearly one in 10 free cashpoints across the country had closed or switched to fee-paying during a 17-month period after changes to how the network is funded were set out.
Reductions to the fees card issuers pay to ATM operators have sparked fears that “cash deserts” could be created, with bank branches also closing.
Looking just at the numbers of free ATMs which had been converted from free to fee-charging, Which? found that the most deprived areas across the UK had seen a reduction of 979 free-to-use machines – equivalent to 5.7 per cent of their ATM network.