A post-bank alliance with social credits
The contraction of the Irish banking network is irreversible and gaining in momentum. The footprint of the bank networks has already shrunk massively and in Britain it is also estimated that five branches will close every week, for as far ahead as it is reasonable to estimate.
There are two forces driving this process. In Ireland the immediate one is brute economics. In the case of Ulster Bank, even after the injection of over £10bn (€12bn) by its British parent RBS, the bank still recorded an operating loss of over £700m last year. Low interest rates hit interest income and a stressed domestic economy provided little scope for optimism on the lending front. Pruning the branch system is an inevitable response to the need for cost reduction.
