It’s time to shout at your bank chairman about branch closures

This is an extract from Martin Vander Weyer’s ‘Any other business’ column in this week’s Spectator

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The Spectator

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The season of high-street banks’ annual general meetings is with us and I urge you to turn up and make trouble. When I say ‘you’, I don’t mean the likes of New York ‘activist’ Edward Bramson — who holds 5 per cent of Barclays and may or may not agitate for a boardroom seat at next Tuesday’s gathering. I mean you, dear reader, the modest shareholder-customer who suffers rotten service, too-frequent computer glitches and negative returns on savings while directors on the platform congratulate themselves on the spurious performance measures that underpin their bonuses. This is your annual chance to make them squirm.

One topic you might like to tackle them on is the continuing tide of branch closures, on which many of you expressed strong views to me early last year.