Post Office Card Account access to benefits payments ends

From 5 April 2022, people in receipt of tax credits, child benefit payments and other statutory payments have no longer been able to access credits through the Post Office, following the end of the contract between the Department for Work and Pensions and Post Office Limited¹.

The change was recorded in a Consumer Council report on access to banking services in Northern Ireland, published in June 2023, which examined how consumers reach banking services after a period of branch closures¹. The report states that between May 2020 and May 2022 banks in Northern Ireland permanently closed 34 branches, and that by early 2023 a further 18 had closed, meaning Northern Ireland had lost 27% of its total bank branch network in less than three years¹. By January 2023, 52 branches had closed, which the report says makes up 27% of the total Northern Ireland bank branch network¹.

The report sets out how far people live from a bank or Post Office branch. Two fifths (40.2%) of the total population of Northern Ireland live within 1km in road distance of a banking service, and 66.7% live within 2km in road distance¹. One fifth (21.2%) of the rural population live within 1km of a banking service, while almost a quarter (24.6%) of those in rural areas are more than 5km away from one¹. Out of 462 electoral wards, 109 have no banking service at all (23.6%), 187 have just one, and 166 have two or more¹.

Source: Consumer Council, Access to Banking Services in Northern Ireland, June 2023¹

The report also records consumer experience of closures. Of consumers affected by a closure (21%), 84% said the closure had an impact on them and 48% said it had a major impact on them or their local community¹. Of those consumers with a disability affected by a closure (23%), 94% said the closure had an impact, and 70% of those said the impact was major¹. Of people on low incomes, defined in the report as less than £20,000 per year, who were affected by a closure (23%), 90% said there was an impact, with 60% of them describing it as major¹. For affected older consumers (25%) and those living in a rural area (25%), over half (54% and 53% respectively) said the impact on them or their local community had been major¹.

The report notes that 28% of survey respondents said they withdraw cash from the Post Office at least once a month, and 19% used a Post Office to pay cash or cheques into their personal bank account at least once a month¹. It adds that in 15% of Northern Ireland households there is no access to a car or van, and that 36% of the total Northern Ireland population live in rural areas¹. Fermanagh and Omagh has the lowest accessibility figures of all the local government districts, with 21.5% of its population living within 1km of a banking service and 44.9% within 2km; 70% of people there live in rural areas, and 11.5% of its rural population live within 1km of a banking service¹.

Why it matters for households

For anyone who was paid tax credits, Child Benefit or another statutory payment into a Post Office card account, the payment route changed on 5 April 2022: those credits could no longer be collected over a Post Office counter¹. The report does not set out what replacement arrangements individual recipients were moved to, and no figures for the number of people affected are given in it¹.

The wider context is a shrinking physical network. The report's mapping shows that a majority of the Northern Ireland population lives within 2km by road of a bank or Post Office branch, but that this falls to 40.3% of the rural population, and that 109 of 462 electoral wards have no banking service at all¹. Where a branch closes, the report says, the in-branch cash withdrawal facility goes with it and cash machines associated with the bank are often withdrawn at the same time¹. It also records that 15% of households have no car or van, which affects how far people can travel to reach a service¹.

What happens next

The report was published in June 2023 and sets out next steps in its own section, but the detail of those steps is not included in the material available here¹. No further dated changes to Post Office access to benefits payments are reported in it¹.