Hosility towards staff sees RBS end island’s mobile bank service

The news comes a month after the mobile bank was branded ‘pointless’ and criticised for taking up valuable space on the island’s vital ferry link.

The Edinburgh-based banking giant has now said that it will stop the mobile services from Monday.

Senior figures at the bank also said that the mobile unit was being affected by “low useage”.

The island’s only RBS branch, in Castlebay, has been granted a reprieve from closure until the end of the year.

Across Scotland, RBS has earmarked 62 branches for the axe, including a number in remote communities. It has faced criticism over the plans in recent months. Ten branches will remain open until the end of the year, pending a review.

Recommendations on whether the branches should stay open will be published by independent reviewer, accountants Johnston Carmichael, in September.

A spokeswoman for RBS said: “The review will include all the alternative ways of banking on Barra, including the mobile van.

“In the meantime, due to a range of factors including low usage, the ferry capacity and a degree of hostility our staff on the mobile branch have faced on a small number of occasions, we are suspending the mobile branch service from week commencing 2 July until the review is complete.”

Last month, Isles MP Angus Brendan MacNeil wrote to RBS following the trialling of its mobile service, to explain that locals were not using it but is taking up vital space on the Sound of Barra ferry.

Angus MacNeil MP, who lives on Barra, also claimed the “large and cumbersome” RBS van was “needlessly” taking up valuable space.

He said: “Clearly our ferries are very busy owing to the success of RET and the efforts that have been made to attract people to the islands.

“However, we need every inch of deck space on the ferries. RBS needlessly sending a van to Barra is using up valuable deck space, inevitably people will be left behind because of RBS’s ill-conceived closure plans, which is bad for our island economy. What would be helpful would be to keep the Castlebay branch open and Lochboisdale open. Instead of this RBS are giving us a sub-standard service and also clogging our ferries which are our arteries of commerce.”