Access to cash coverage in the UK 2022 Q1

On a quarterly basis, with the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), we gather and update data on access to cash. This captures the locations of cash access points and other relevant information like temporary closures, opening hours, and accessibility. This data covers brick-and-mortar, mobile bank, and building society branches, automated teller machines (ATMs), and the Post Office network. We supplement this information with annual data on cashback locations.

This analysis provides insights on the proportion of the population that lives within a range of distances of various cash access points, although in this summary we focus on those within 2km and 5km of a cash access point. For this and future updates we have updated our methodology on estimating coverage. We measure distances as the crow flies (see note 1), consistent with the approaches adopted by LINK and the Post Office. In previous coverage analysis we estimated access based on geographic coverage ie how much land area is within, say, 2km of a cash access point. However, we now measure distances directly from all UK residential addresses. We believe our updated methodology represents a more accurate picture of access to cash coverage in the UK relative to where people live (see note 2).

We estimate that for access to any bank, building society, Post Office branch, or any ATM (either free or pay-to-use) in 2022 Q1:

• 96.6% of the UK population are currently within 2km of a cash access point
• 99.8% of the UK population are currently within 5km of a cash access point
• 96.4% of the UK population are currently within 2km of a free-to-use cash access point
• 99.8% of the UK population are currently within 5km of a free-to-use cash access point

During this period there were changes in the type of access points available. Between 2021 Q4 and 2022 Q1:

• The number of brick-and-mortar branches of the larger banks and building societies providing personal current accounts (PCA) fell by 184, a decrease of 3.5%. Since 2021 Q1, such branches have declined in number by 757, or 12.9%.
• There was a small increase in the availability of Post Office branches (1.6%).
• While there was a negligible decrease in the number of free-to-use ATMs, the number of pay-to-use ATMs dropped considerably by 787, a decrease of 6.7%.

Despite a reduction in access points, our coverage figures are higher for 2022 Q1 compared to 2021 Q4. This is mainly because of the changes in our methodology. As a result we cannot directly compare changes in coverage between these periods on a like for like basis and infer any improvement in coverage.

Our analysis of other access characteristics finds that during this period:

• There was no change in overall weekly opening hours for banks, building societies and post offices.
• Temporary closures of Type A (brick-and-mortar branches of a larger PCA provider) showed a small increase from 2021 Q4 to 38.8%. It is not possible to get reliable results for Type B (smaller bank and building society branches) due to a high proportion of branches not returning data.

The data comprises 70,791 known UK cash access points and 485,704 cashback locations. Table 1 shows numbers by region for 8 types of access points  (see notes 3, 4, and 5):

• Types A and B are brick-and-mortar bank and building society branches provided by (A) larger PCA providers and (B) all other banks and building societies, respectively.
  Type B branches may offer more limited deposit and withdrawal services compared to Type A branches, for example, a building society that specialises in mortgages or savings accounts.
• Mobile bank branches (measured by stops) are a separate type (D).
• Post Office branches are subdivided into mobile/outreach branches (type E) and all other Post Office branches (type C). The outreach branches are brick-and-mortar but are more like mobile branches, being typically open for a small number of hours or on selected days of the week. For example, these include limited time to serve access points in community buildings in rural locations. For this reason, we group the mobile and outreach branches together.
• ATMs are subdivided into free-to-use (type F) and pay-to-use (type G).
• Cashback locations (type H) are all the unique locations where a cashback transaction took place in 2020.

Table 1: Number of cash access points by type and geographical area

Download Table 1 (XLSX) 

We have analysed coverage for 14 groups of cash access points which we define in Table 2. The groups are constructed by combining the cash access point types and cashback locations:

• group 1 includes type A (larger banks and building societies providing PCA) access points only
• group 2 adds the non-mobile/outreach Post Office network
• group 3 includes all brick-and-mortar (except type B) and mobile/outreach bank, building society, and Post Office branches, representing all known locations where customers can access banking services beyond cash withdrawals or deposits
• groups 4 and 5 include the same cash access point types as Group 3, as well as all free-to-use ATMs and all ATMs respectively
• group 6 includes type B branches and contains all free-to-use access points.
• group 7 includes all 70,791 known cash access points
• groups 8 and 9 focus on access to ATMs, for free-to-use and all ATMs respectively
• groups 10, 11, and 12 combine free-to-use access points, all access points and all ATMs respectively with cashback locations
• groups 13 and 14 focus on access to the Post Office network distinguishing between non-mobile/outreach branches and all branches

Due to substitutability, as outlined above, type B branches are only included in groups 6, 7, 10, and 11.

Table 2: Groupings of cash access points

On this web page we provide highlights of coverage in Table 3. We present data for groups 3 and 6 as proxies for cash deposit and free cash withdrawal access for consumers. We provide these figures  for Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the UK as a whole split by overall, rural and urban at distances 2km and 5km. For ease of understanding we have also provided figures in nearest whole miles (1 mile and 3 miles).

Table 3: Percentages of the UK population that have access to a source of cash within a given distance as of 2022 Q1 (groups 3 and 6)

Estimated percentages of the UK population living within a given distance from a cash access point for all groups 1-14 can be downloaded via the link below (see notes 6, 7, and 8).

We give the estimates for the UK regions and devolved nations separately, as well as for England and the UK overall. Estimates for rural and urban areas are also given (see note 9).

The distances considered are 1, 2, 5, 8, and 16 km (approximately 0.6, 1.2, 3, 5, and 10 miles, respectively).

Download Table 3: Percentages of the UK population that have access to a source of cash within a given distance as of 2022 Q1 (Groups 1-14) (xlsx)

Figure 1 shows the coverage areas underlying the population estimates for groups 1-14. In each case the areas shown are those without access to a source of cash within 1, 2, 5, 8, or 16 km. The areas shown in white have a cash access point within 1 km or nearer. The interactive tooltips show percentages of the Local Authority District population that have access to a source of cash within the above range of distances.

Download underlying data for Figure 1 maps (XLSX)

Figure 1: Access to cash coverage in the UK in 2022 Q1

View the maps in Tableau Public

In addition to the data collected from banks, building societies, and the Post Office, the analysis uses other open data and data licensed under the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement.

• ATM data © LINK Scheme Ltd, LINK Network Members, and licensors copyright and database right 2022. 
• Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2021. 
• Contains NRS data © Crown copyright and database right 2022. 
• Contains NISRA data © Crown copyright and database right 2021.  
• Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database rights 2021/2022. 
• Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2022. 
• Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. 
• Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. 
• This product contains data created and maintained by Scottish Local Government.