Andrew Griffith, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, says major banks face being fined if they fail to provide free access to cash withdrawals within three miles of consumers and businesses. Report by Czubalam. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 People's access to cash is incredibly important and what the government's doing is coming out with new guidelines
00:06 that cash has to be available within about a mile of people's where people live in urban areas,
00:12 three miles, no more than three miles in rural areas and that must be free so people can't be
00:18 charged when we look at the availability of cash. Cash is important, it's here to stay for
00:24 the long term. Many people, the elderly, the vulnerable, particularly rural communities,
00:28 do depend on that access to cash and if we want our shops to continue to take cash over the counter
00:34 then of course those businesses have got to have somewhere to deposit it so the rules that we're
00:38 announcing also cover the ability of businesses to deposit cash in a location that's convenient
00:43 to them. Well at the moment over 95% of people do fall within that criteria so we're in a good
00:49 place today there's over 50,000 cash machines right now and of course you can use the post
00:55 office but we're also here outside of this banking hub and that's another way that people can both
01:01 access their own cash but also get some of the other facilities that used to be associated with
01:06 bank branches. We know that as payment methods change some bank branches are closing. Ideas that
01:13 the government supported like the banking hubs are brilliant solutions to that. There's multiple
01:18 different banks represented there, people can go in and conduct a range of transactions making sure
01:24 that people continue to have access to the services that I know as the minister responsible
01:29 they really need and they really value.