Closed Doors: The Banking Crisis Failing Rural and Post-Industrial Wales

January is often a month of new beginnings, a fresh start, a chance to look ahead with hope. But this January, a community in my constituency watched a chapter come to an end. Ammanford’s last bank branch closed its doors for the final time. Lloyds on Quay Street is gone, leaving a town with an area population of 23,709 people without a single full-service bank.

For many, this might seem like a minor inconvenience in an age of smartphones and online banking. In Ammanford, it is anything but. Gigabit broadband coverage in Carmarthenshire stands at just 41%, against a UK average of 78%. Superfast broadband reaches 85% of the county, compared to 96% nationally. For residents across Ammanford, Brynamman, Glanamman, Tycroes, Llandybie, Betws and the wider Amman valley, online banking is not a reliable alternative – mobile apps don’t function where signal is poor and connections are slow. Digital cannot replace in-person services for everyone.

The national picture is equally troubling. Across Wales, bank and building society branches fell from 695 in 2012 to 435 in 2022, and the closures disproportionately hit rural and less populated areas. Meanwhile, cash remains far from obsolete. In 2025, £76 billion was withdrawn from Link ATMs in 1.27 billion transactions. Cash use has fallen – from 62% of all UK payments in 2006 to around 14% today – but for the elderly, those with disabilities, people with lower financial resilience and the digitally excluded, it remains essential. The Financial Conduct Authority has acknowledged this. The closures continue regardless.

The human cost rarely makes it into balance sheets. One constituent wrote to me: “I don’t think any consideration has been given to the disabled, elderly, or even younger people who cannot travel to other towns.” Another, caring for a brain-injured partner, told me that travelling to the nearest branch in Gorseinon would cause “unnecessary distress and anxiety” – and that disabled parking there doesn’t even meet his partner’s needs. These are not just edge cases. They are the everyday realities of rural and post-industrial Wales.

Cash also has a social dimension that is easy to dismiss. As one resident put it: “I’m old school and still like to have cash – giving my grandchild pocket money, giving tips if I go out, taxis – the list could go on.” These small exchanges are the fabric of community life, and in smaller towns they matter more than any algorithm can measure.

Banking hubs offer a genuine path forward – shared facilities that provide face-to-face cash and banking services in communities that have lost their branches. The Government has pledged to establish at least 350 across the UK, and Wales currently has 12, with more in development in Gorseinon and Holyhead. Yet there is not a single one in Caerfyrddin.

The eligibility process itself needs urgent reform. Link – which accounts for 77% of all UK ATM transactions – assesses whether a hub is needed after a branch closes. In Ammanford’s case, it found just 7,444 adults living near the high street, below the 10,000 threshold required. Yet the wider area population is 23,709. In post-industrial communities, towns and villages blur into one another; the high street is not where everyone lives, but it is where everyone comes. A threshold built for urban geography fails rural Wales entirely.

The Federation of Small Businesses Wales has said it clearly: a return to a bank on every high street is unrealistic, but new models like banking hubs must be developed to keep services locally available. I agree – and I am urging residents to sign my petition calling on Link to engage with local stakeholders before finalising any assessment. Hundreds have already done so.

The Government must now act with urgency: accelerate the rollout of banking hubs in rural and post-industrial communities and review the cash access assessment process so that it reflects the real needs of places like Ammanford. These hubs are not a luxury. For communities already under strain, they are a lifeline; and no one should be left without one.