Post Office’s (PO’s) 11,500 branches have seen cash withdrawals increase by 15% year-on-year partly due to February being a leap year, reaching £806m in personal cash withdrawals. This is an increase of 3.6% from January, when cash withdrawals totalled £778m.
Personal cash deposits amounted to £1.28bn, up 6.2% year-on-year (£1.21bn, February 2023). In January personal cash deposits totalled £1.42bn, with PO noting the month being longer.
Cash deposits generally fell month-on-month, with Wales seeing a -10.6% drop to £117.6m, and Northern Ireland falling -10.1% to £117.4m.
Ross Borkett, Post Office banking director, said: “February’s cash withdrawal and deposit figures suggests that a significant number of people and businesses continue to rely on being able to access their cash, for free, at their local PO in order to help with day-to-day management of their finances.”
Business cash deposits totalled £1.06bn, up 6.7% year-on-year (£998m, February 2023). In January, which was a longer month, business cash deposits totalled £1.14bn.
In total, £3.18bn worth of cash transactions were handled by Pos in February.
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In February, the location for a further seven Banking Hubs were announced, taking the total to 109 Banking Hubs. Forty hubs are now open providing spaces developed in partnership with Cash Access UK, where PO provides banking and cash services to local residents and businesses.
PO has partnerships with more than 30 banks, building societies and credit unions, and claims that 99% of UK bank customers can access their accounts at their PO branch.
Postmaster and banking hub operator Mairi Wingate, of Barton on Humber, Lincolshire, said: “I’m seeing lots of new faces at the banking hub that I have not seen before at my existing Post Office. They are in different areas of the town and the PO is still as busy dealing with banking deposits and withdrawals. This shows the extent of the banking needs of the town and the surrounding villages.
“There’s no way that cash is dying out. With the cost-of-living situation, using cash makes it easier for people to budget and businesses are happy to accept cash from customer as long as there are nearby places to do banking. Places like the nearby amusement arcade has lots of coins for banking.”
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