Royal Bank of Scotland has been accused in the House of Commons of massaging figures in the latest round of branch closures to make it appear fewer customers were using them.
The part-taxpayer owned bank was alleged to have abandoned customers by the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford in a debate last night following the bank’s announcement of 62 branch closures across the UK. Thirteen Scots towns or villages are set to lose their last bank branch.
The Ross, Skye and Lochaber MP said RBS claimed only 11 customers used the Mallaig branch a week, but he said the bank had more than 1,000 customers with just over 10,000 transactions.
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He claimed in Beauly, which RBS said had only 27 customers visiting the branch each week, there were 3,439 customers with 29,000 transactions.
Mr Blackford said the Kyle of Lochalsh branch, according to the bank, had only 51 customers. But he told MPs the full figures showed there were 2,436 customers with 25,000 transactions.
He said: “RBS have, at best, been misleading with the figures.
“If you focus on the so-called 51 [in Kyle] you might be sympathetic to the demands from RBS to close the bank and yet 25,000 transactions a year allows me to conclude that the branch is still relatively busy.
“Why don’t RBS come clean and tell us the number of transactions in all the threatened branches? It is a disgrace.”