Banks pledge to build on financial inclusion progress

Britain's banks are committed to building further on progress in improving financial inclusion through the provision of basic bank accounts, the British Bankers' Association said today.

Welcoming HM Treasury's announcement that a significant reduction in people without a bank account, the BBA pledged to continue its work to bring to more people the benefits of banking.

According to a Treasury assessment of figures from the Department of Work and Pensions, the number of adults in households with no access to a bank account has fallen by around a third to 1.85 million in 2007-08, from 2.83 million in 2002-03.

BBA chief executive Angela Knight said: "These figures show we are moving closer to the goal shared with the Government to halve the number of adults without a bank account. Banks are committed to working with the Government and other stakeholders to further improve financial inclusion through the provision of basic accounts.

"Commitments to customers over basic accounts, currently contained in the Banking Code, will be preserved when regulation of retail banking is taken over by the Financial Services Authority later this year.

"Basic accounts provide important banking services for people to manage their finances, particularly for those with no previous banking relationship. Today's Treasury figures give further evidence that the growth of these accounts has helped to improve financial inclusion in recent years."

The new Treasury figures come after the latest statistics from the BBA showed that another 145,000 post office accessible accounts were opened in the first quarter of 2009 and 26,000 existing accounts were upgraded.

Since April 2003, over 3.6 million post office accessible accounts have been opened (half of which are estimated to be for customers with no previous banking relationship) and 465,000 have been upgraded to other accounts. There are also 3.5 million other basic functionality accounts, accessible through branches, cash machines and mobile branch facilities. Of these, a net total of 810,000 have been opened and 211,000 upgraded in the past five years.