Leader: Banks still taking customers for granted

IT'S a convenience of modern life we take for granted. You take out your bank card, put it in to an ATM and out pops your cash. As easy as 1,2,3 or perhaps 1,2,3,4, or whatever your PIN number is.

All that is changing for Royal Bank of Scotland customers with a basic new account now only being allowed to use the company's own cash machines to take out money, something which also applies to some Lloyds clients.

Even in big cities, what could be more frustrating than having to search for a branch of your bank in which to withdraw cash, rather than just putting your card in the nearest machine?

RBS argues these basic services allow customers who might not be able to have a bank account to have one, but this looks like another sly way of the bank curtailing what it offers the public who, in case they forget, own it following the taxpayer-funded bail out. Furthermore, if RBS and Lloyds are both operating this system, then how long before other banks follow suit?

Customers have right to expect a certain level of service, including withdrawals at any ATM machine. The banks say they want less state intervention, not more, but if they continue to take customers for granted they may find the government feels it has to step in.