Urban and Rural Proximity Metrics
The Financial Conduct Authority reports that 97.2% of the UK urban population are currently within 1 mile of a free-to-use cash access point offering deposits via designated banks and building societies providing PCA and Post Office: all branches, including mobile bank branches. For rural populations, 97.5% live within 3 miles of a deposit-taking access point. When broadening the criteria to include any bank, building society, Post Office branch or any free ATM, 99.6% of the urban population are within 1 mile, and 98.2% of the rural population are within 3 miles. The headline coverage figures remain broadly comparable with previous data publications. They continue to show more than 95% of the UK population being within the distances set out in the Treasury's Cash Access Policy Statement.
Dataset Composition and Geographic Measurement
The published figures stem from data comprising 58,971 reported UK cash access points and 554,441 cashback locations. Distances are measured as the crow flies from residential addresses to their nearest access point by type.
Branch Accessibility and Operational Status
On temporary closures, the regulator notes that a high proportion of branches did not provide this information; however, of the type A branches that provided this information (89%), 6% were temporarily closed for at least 1 day.