Post Office to hike bank fees that let people take out cash at branches to help claw back money for Horizon scandal payouts

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... youts.html

The Post Office is set to hike bank fees by around £350million a year in an attempt to claw back money for payouts arising from the Horizon scandal.

Around 30 banks and building societies are considering a proposal from the Post Office that would see the banks pay between £350m and £400m a year to allow their customers to access its network, Sky News reported.

Currently the banks pay around £250m-a-year to access the Post Office's network, to allow their customers to take out cash at local banks.

The additional money will be used to strengthen the new deal for sub-postmasters announced by Post Office chair Nigel Railton in November, which sets out to to deliver a quarter of a billion pounds boost to postmasters' income by 2030.

The Post Office relies on an annual government subsidy to operate and cost-cutting measures are understood to be designed to help the company deal with large financial losses.

Insiders in Whitehall have reportedly been consulted on the plans, as they ponder handing the network back to thousands of local sub-postmasters.

The company has been engulfed in scandal since the ITV drama 'Mr Bates vs The Post Office' brought mainstream attention to the Horizon scandal.

The wrongful fraud and theft convictions of hundreds of sub-postmasters has been described as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.

A huge number of those affected have since suffered ill health, financial loss or even death before their exonerations.

The company has seen a revolving door of senior personnel in the last year, leading to calls for a review of the company's ownership model.

Former chair Henry Staunton was sacked by Kemi Badenoch when she was business secretary.

He then disclosed an investigation into bullying claims against chief executive Nick Read, which he was exonerated of in April.

Mr Read joined in 2019, long after the events which eventually sparked the Horizon scandal.

He had replaced Paula Vennells, who forfeited her CBE following public anger over her handling of the Horizon scandal.

Despite its reported efforts to raise more cash, in September it was revealed that the Post Office had handled a record amount of cash as customers continue to flock to its branches following the closure of thousands of Britain's high street banks.

Customers have been forced to use the Post Office in many cases because it is the only option available to them after 6,000 bank branches shut their doors since 2015.

The rate of closure has been around 50 branches a month, and it shows no sign of slowing down as customers continue to gravitate to online banking.

However a sizeable portion of the population continues to need access to brick and mortar banking, causing them to use the Post Offices basic cash handling services.

A Post Office spokesperson told Sky News: 'We will set out a 'new deal' for postmasters and the future of the Post Office as an organisation.

'It will dramatically increase postmasters' share of revenues, strengthen our branch network and make it work better for local communities, independent postmasters and our partners who own and operate branches.'