Last November, the UK Government announced its Financial Inclusion Strategy – a new approach to tackling the systemic barriers that prevent people from accessing things like bank accounts, affordable credit, savings and insurance.

It’s a good initiative. My colleagues and I have written here many times about how important these basic services are to living a decent life in today’s rapidly changing economy, and how difficult it can be for those who don’t have access to them.

The problem with the current UK strategy is that it doesn’t really cater for the specific challenges that we have in Scotland, for example our greater spread of remote and rural communities.

For that reason, I believe it is time Scotland had its own Financial Inclusion Strategy.  This could bring together all levels of government plus other key........

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