HSBC to close 114 high street branches
BIG-NAME banks were accused of isolating elderly and vulnerable people as HSBC announced 114 branch closures yesterday.
The latest shocking cull means more than 5,000 banks have disappeared from Britain’s battered high streets since 2015.
Furious campaigners said closures would further marginalise elderly, disabled and disadvantaged customers – and could even trigger discrimination cases.
Former pensions minister and Tory life peer Ros Altmann, 66, backs the Daily Express campaign to appoint an Older People’s Tsar.
She said: “Of course fewer people visit their branch, but that does not mean firms should feel entitled to exclude older customers who cannot manage the lower-cost, higherprofit ways of working which best suit the banks.
“This could even amount to age discrimination.”
Dominic Hook, of Unite, said the union was “appalled” at HSBC’s decision and accused it of “walking away” from people and communities who most needed local banking.
Analysis by cash machine network Link has shown a further 226 banks will close by the end of the year, bringing the total for 2022 to 325 – nearly one every day.
Which? said there were just 5,154 left on UK high streets, down from 9,807 in 2015.
Rocio Concha, from the consumer champion, said: “The decision by HSBC to close a quarter of its bank branch network, after already shutting more than 600 sites since 2015, risks further cutting adrift those who rely on cash.”
It comes as the industry marches to fully online and app-first banking.
Elderly and vulnerable people make up the vast proportion of inbranch customers.
Forecasts show there were 1.7 million people aged 85 and over in 2020, equal to 2.5 per cent of our population. But this is expected to almost double to 3.1 million by
2045 – 4.3 per cent of us. Government figures show nearly all under-55s, but only just over half of over-65s, own a smartphone. However, more than two million over-70s do not access the internet.
HSBC banks closing from April 18 include Blandford Forum, Dorset, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Cromer, Norfolk, St Ives, Cambs, and St Austell, Cornwall.
HSBC, which made a £15.7billion profit last year, said some branches were now serving fewer than 250 customers a week.
It says it will invest millions improving its remaining network – 327 once the cull is complete.
HSBC UK distribution chief, Jackie Uhi, said: “People are changing the way they bank and footfall in many branches is at an all-time low, with no signs of it returning. Banking remotely is becoming the norm for the vast majority of us.”
BANK closures are a worrying trend, making it much harder for people to manage their money, pay bills and buy essentials.
Some of us have abandoned cash and now make all our purchases with a bank card or online. Others, however, continue to depend on notes and coins to pay for the weekly shop.
And many of us still need to pay cheques into our bank accounts on a regular basis.
The growth of internet banking may one day change all that, but it hasn’t happened yet.We still need bricks and mortar banks and older people are most likely to be affected by the cull of branches.
Firms such as HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, TSB and others that carry out closures are putting profit before their customers – despite enjoying hefty profits already.