Saving Gateway Accounts Bill

We are approaching a new age of financial responsibility as a result of the current downturn in the financial markets, and we will see a separation of banking services. Investment banks will become separate from retail banks, which will, in their purest form, have to get used to much smaller profit margins. So the traditional reasons for not entering the markets that are the subject of the Bill will eventually disappear. All banks publish voluminous annual reports, and at the back they include corporate social responsibility statements. There is no better way for the banks to demonstrate their corporate social responsibility than by seizing this initiative and driving it through their branch network. At the moment, banks are rightly held in very low esteem by the vast majority of people and banks need to make some headway in the community. Traditionally, banks have ignored low income groups in favour of chasing those people whom they deem to be more profitable—those who can take out significant mortgages or rack up large credit card debts. I do not want to see any financial sector excluded from delivering these accounts. I sincerely hope that the Post Office is involved in their delivery, because for many people the post office is their local shop and at the centre of their community. I also hope that credit unions play their part in delivering these accounts, but the credit union sector is still small—although it is growing—and many communities will not have a local credit union over the next decade or so. So banks will have an important role to play in delivering these accounts. I am sure that when the whiz kids in the banks sit down and look at the accounts they will conclude that they will not make a lot of money out of them. Indeed, banks might make a small loss in delivering the accounts. However, that should not deter them. We have heard many declarations of contrition for the banks’ failures in the past year and the failures that undoubtedly lie ahead, but if they are to restore confidence, the provision of these accounts would be a good place to start. I hope that banks will seize the opportunity to volunteer to be at the forefront of this initiative, instead of being dragged to do so.