The Bank of England (BoE) is scrapping its retail banking and clearing services, ending over 300 years of its role as a banker to the UK government.
The bank is withdrawing its retail bakning services in order to focus on its core purpose of maintaining monetary and financial stability and says the provision of retail banking activities does not form an integral part of its role as a central bank.
It will phase out the retail banking services it provides to commercial customers such as government departments, building societies and other corporate customers over the next few years.
BoE says the main impact of this decision will be on the high volume but low value retail payments that it makes on behalf of its customers through Bacs and Cheque and Credit Clearing, but adds that this will not be problematic as these services are already provided by commercial banks.
The bank will continue to offer wholesale banking facilities to the financial markets as well as daily cash management services for high-level government accounts.