Reduced Times of Opening, Scarinish Branch

It was recently suggested that we write to the Royal Bank of Scotland in relation to the reduced branch opening hours which will begin later in the summer. It was noted that the letter received by customers mentioned an ATM. We thought it would be a good opportunity to see if one might be installed. There are no promises, but the initial communication has been positive.

Dear Mr Crawford,

Thank you for your recent letter advising RBS customers on Tiree of reduced hours of opening at the above branch. The matter was discussed at last evenings Tiree Community Council meeting, following representations by RBS customers to Tiree Community Council.

In particular, RBS customers are puzzled to learn from your recent letter that, “cash machine availability will remain the same”. As the Scarinish branch does not currently have a cash dispensing machine, there will be no obvious advantage to RBS Scarinish customers. May we suggest that RBS investigates the installation of a cash dispensing machine, which would in fact go a long way toward balancing the additional days that the branch will be closed. This simple act of providing a cash machine would put Tiree on a level playing field with larger, (and not so large), city branches, and all at minimal cost to RBS. I might add that currently, non RBS customers are turned away from the Tiree branch as it is only RBS customers who can receive card based cash.

I do hope that you might seriously consider the above proposal as overcoming some of the obvious reputational damage to your company when visitor numbers on Tiree swell to over 2,500 during the summer months, many of these will of course be existing RBS customers, with an expectation that they can withdraw cash at any time.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should I be able to provide any further information to you.

Best regards,

Ian

Ian Gillies,
Secretary,
Tiree Community Council.

And the response:

Mr Gillies

Many thanks for the email and for taking the time to reply to the letter that I had sent and also for discussing the hours change at your recent Council Meeting. I have also copied Craig Smith from the branch into my response so he is aware of our communications.

Firstly let me apologies for the wording of the letter around the cash line. Upon reading the wording back it could’ve been either removed or worded in a different way as you are quite correct that there is no current ATM facility.

The subject of the cash machine came up on my last visit to the Island and after discussions with the Tiree Music Festival organisers and it is something that we investigated last year. At that point we had decided that the current set up of full time branch hours and a mobile cash machine visiting the festival was discussed and we felt this was the correct way forward. Now with the branch hours changing that may lead us to a different conclusion. I have today went away and requested a business case to be looked at within the company for the feasibility of a ATM machine to be installed in the branch. What I would say though is there wont be a quick answer but I will start the communications within the bank to see what can be done.

I will work with Craig to get all the supporting information including local events and visitor numbers to help the case.

While I cant promise it will be successful I can promise that I will try and get a successful outcome for you and the community.

Thanks

Gary

Gary Crawford | Local Chief Executive Officer