Access to cash coverage in the UK 2023 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 such as 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 types of cash access point. We measure distances as the crow flies  (see note 1), consistent with the approaches adopted by LINK and the Post Office, relative to residential addresses (see note 2).

We estimate that for access to larger banks and building societies providing Personal Current Accounts (PCA) and Post Office: all branches, including mobile bank branches:

• 97.4% of the UK urban population are currently within 1 mile of a free-to-use cash access point offering deposits
• 98.3% of the UK rural population are currently within 3 miles of a free-to-use cash access point offering deposits

We estimate that for access to any bank, building society, Post Office branch, or any free ATM:

• 99.3% of the UK urban population are currently within 1 mile of a free-to-use cash access point offering withdrawals
• 98.7% of the UK rural population are currently within 3 miles of a free-to-use cash access point offering withdrawals

For the UK as a whole, estimates of coverage at 1 mile and 3 miles have seen little clear change since 2022 Q4.  

• The number of brick-and-mortar branches of the larger bank and building societies providing cash services fell by 90 branches, a decrease of 2%.
• The number of post offices was stable.

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

• There was a small increase (1.2%) in the number of larger banks and building societies (type A) opening on Saturdays between 9am and 12pm.
• There was a small decrease (0.5-0.7%) in the number of larger banks and building societies (type A) opening on weekdays between 10am and 2pm, but an increase (0.5-1.1%) opening later in the afternoon (3-5pm).
• Post Offices showed a trend of branches opening progressively later in the afternoons, with an increase of 1.2% of branches open at 7pm. There was also a small increase (0.7%) open between 8am and 9am, Monday to Saturday.
• Temporary closures of type A (brick-and-mortar branches of a larger PCA provider) showed a decrease of 50% from 2022 Q4 [see note 11]. The number of branches closed for one day or more fell from 16.4% in 2022 Q4 to 7.4% in 2023 Q1. We cannot get reliable results for type B (smaller branches) due to a high proportion of branches not returning data.

The data comprises 67,354 known UK cash access points and 487,224 cashback locations. Table 1 shows numbers by region for 8 types of access point (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 similar to 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 2022.

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

Download Table 1[3] (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 67,354 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 of 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 2023 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[4] (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, 3, 5, and 10 miles (approximately 1.6, 3.2, 4.8, 8.0 and 16 km, respectively).

Download Table 3 data[5] (xlsx)

Figure 1 shows the coverage areas underlying the population estimates in Table 3. As in Table 3, the cash access points considered are those in groups 1-14. In each case the areas shown are those without access to a source of cash within 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 miles. 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[6] (XLSX)

Figure 1: Access to cash coverage in the UK in 2023 Q1

View the maps in Tableau Public[7]

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 2022.
• 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.