Information on FCA Bank of Scotland Fife Cowdenbeth Branch - October 2024

Please provide: 

• Any communication regarding the Bank of Scotland Fife Cowdenbeath Branch being the only Bank in the area.
• Decision to close xx/06/2025.
• Any communication linked to another FCA regulated entity taking over the premises.

We can confirm that we hold information in respect of the first part of your request. However, we are prohibited from disclosing it to you as it constitutes ‘confidential information’ for the purposes of section 348 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), which the FCA has received in the discharge of its public functions. We are therefore exempted from the duty to disclose this information under section 44 of FOIA. For more information on why this exemption applies, please see Annex A.

We can confirm that we do not hold any information concerning ‘Any communication linked to another FCA regulated entity taking over the premises’.

Further information in the public domain may be found here[1].

As previously advised under case number FOI11578, you may wish to be aware that on 24 July 2024 the FCA published a Policy Statement[2] on Access to Cash, which sets out final rules and guidance for a new regulatory regime to support access to cash for the consumers and businesses that rely on it.

Our new regime requires banks and building societies to:

• Assess cash access and understand if additional services are needed when changes are being made to local services.
• Respond to local residents, community organisations and representative groups, who will be able to request an assessment of whether there are gaps in local cash access.
• Where significant gaps are found, deliver reasonable additional cash services.
• Keep facilities, including bank branches and ATMs, open until any additional cash services identified are available.

As outlined in the statement, we provided an 8-week implementation period between publishing our Policy Statement and our rules came into force to give designated entities time to familiarise themselves with our rules and establish the necessary processes to comply with them. So, our rules came into force on 18 September 2024.

Further information can be found on our website here[3].