Do we need a bank in 2016?

Although no official statement has been announced by the company, a number of Marshalswick residents think they know that one of The Quadrant's two banks, Lloyds, is to close.  Whether they have made an assumption, base on the bank's latest national intention to close two hundred branches, on top of the branches in the current closure programme, may simply be speculation.  Lloyds' website only lists the tranche of branches being closed under the existing programme.  It states that after that programme "90% of its customers will still be within 5 miles of their local branch".  It is, though, a moot point whether a branch which is five miles distant can be considered local.

Barclays and Lloyds occupy opposite ends of a side block at
The Quadrant.

Even if every customer used online banking and cash machines (ATMs) there would still be a need for banks.  Cash which businesses need to deposit, or any of us, come to that; cash which we need to withdraw for our own use (and for which uniform £10 or £20 notes are not satisfactory; the advice and help branch staff are able to give, face to face, more satisfactorily than via telephone calls to service centres; ditto after online problems have grunged up our systems or been interfered with by malicious strangers.  If banks wish to add to their customer base, they need to invest in their customers.  Remember when banks universally opened weekdays only from 9.30 to 3.30?  Then they tried Saturday mornings with limited services. Then they closed again, leaving an ATM in charge. Now many have 9 to 5 opening and extended Saturday business for a full range of services.  Is this the time, then, to shut customers out and force them to travel out of their local area?

Barclays opened a branch at The Crown before World
War One.

Until World War One all of the banks in St Albans were in the centre of the city.  But then you could probably draw a circle a mile around the Town Hall and enclose almost everywhere, except for Fleetville and Camp.  Barclays was the first to open in the east, with a branch at Alexandra House, on the corner of Hatfield Road and Clarence Road, and there it remained until around 1968 when it moved to the corner of Sandfield Road.  The Midland arrived in 1922 (now part of Tesco Metro).  NatWest opened nearby in c1970, where the Grove charity shop is now, and moved to the other Sandfield Road corner five years later.  Lloyds pitched up at the Harlesden Road junction, now the home of City Glass.

Barclays moved more to the centre of its Fleetville
customer base in the 1960s.

Although NatWest and Lloyds seem to have arrived late on the scene, all of them recognised the huge mix of business potential in Fleetville – which would include Camp, given that no Bank existed along that road.  But today there are no banks in Fleetville, although there are broadly the same number of businesses and even more families.

Marshalswick has been served by two banks ever since The Quadrant opened, and since 1960 the eastern districts have continued to grow outwards.  It is not as if modern (i.e. online) banking has reduced the waiting time if we require counter service or need to speak with an adviser – meaning a member of staff who could make decisions, a role which used to be known as the Branch Manager.

Dare it be asked, that could the decline in banking availability be arrested by requiring us to pay for our accounts?  Should we have a right to complain if our account is serviced for free?  Maybe there is no room in the market today for two banks at The Quadrant.  Just as long as the one which remains doesn't "up-sticks" and disappear into a vortex as well.  And in order to spread a little banking happiness would it be too much to ask for the bank which leaves The Quadrant (if, indeed, one does) could not return to its old haunt in Fleetville?