RBS axes third of its branches in just 4 months

Closures will hit millions, warn critics

Royal Bank of Scotland is shutting a third of its branches this year, hitting families across the country.

The bailed-out lender had already announced in December that it was to shut 259 branches in 2018.

yesterday it revealed that it was axing another 162 outlets, with the loss of 792 jobs.

When both sets of closures are completed it will leave the lender with 849 branches.

The bank had 1,270 branches under its RBS and NatWest brands at the end of 2017, meaning the latest cutbacks will slash its network by 33 per cent.

The announcement came after the bank last week unveiled a profit of £1.2billion for the first three months of 2018 – up 70 per cent on a year earlier.

Campaigners warned that the closures will hit small shops which rely on them to handle cash and boost footfall, and leave millions of vulnerable people without access to a bank.

Mike Cherry, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: ‘This fresh round of closures will hurt high streets at a time when thousands of small firms are already struggling.

‘When a bank branch goes it means less footfall, less cash in the local economy and less revenue for local small firms as a result. If small firms can’t easily deposit takings it makes them targets for theft.’ Caroline abrahams, of age UK, said: ‘This is terrible news for many older customers – particularly those who are offline or live in rural areas – who may be left stranded in the wake of these closures.’

The latest closures will hit 162 branches run under the RBS brand in England and Wales.

These were originally supposed to be split off into a new lender under the revived Williams & Glyn name to satisfy competition regulators after RBS’s £46billion rescue by taxpayers in 2008.

But the plan was abandoned after the bank had spent £1.8billion on it, because bosses said it would not work. Instead, RBS is launching a £775million fund to help rivals improve their business banking to satisfy the demands of competition watchdogs. It means the bank is finally free to shut the branches.

RBS said that many of them are on the same street as NatWest branches, where customers will be able to go instead. RBS is shutting 109 of the branches within 0.6 miles of another of its outlets by the end of august.

The remaining 53 – which RBS said are all no more than 2.5 miles from another of its sites – will go by the end of November. But trade union Unite said that customers at 71 of the branches will now be forced to make 25mile round trips to get access to finance. In the most extreme cases journeys could be longer than 130 miles, it claimed.

The closures announced in December will hit 259 NatWest and RBS branches across the UK and cost nearly 700 jobs.

Bosses say that cutbacks are necessary because more and more customers want to bank online, and that they are just following consumer behaviour.

RBS said: ‘We have two branch networks operating in close proximity in England and Wales. as a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to close a number of RBS branches.’

‘Terrible news for older customers’