1,000 jobs at risk as TSB axes cashiers amid branch closures

TSB is scrapping the traditional cashier role in another blow to local banking.

The bank’s 929 cashiers have been told they either need to retrain for a more complex role, take voluntary redundancy or lose their job entirely when the role is phased out in early 2021.

Cashiers perform basic bank transactions such as cashing cheques and helping customers with queries.

These will still be available in its 500 branches – but TSB wants staff to be able to do more complex roles such as helping customers open accounts or use digital services.

The lender has hammered yet another nail in the cash coffin because it expects less customers to use branches for basic transactions – and it cited the Covid-19 pandemic for speeding this up.

Mark Brown, the general secretary of the bank’s staff union TBU, said: ‘ TSB was already facing major cost problems and this looks like them jumping on the bandwagon, using the pandemic as an excuse to get rid of these roles. They don’t know whether people will return to branches once this pandemic is over.’

TSB’s Spanish parent company Sabadell said it had been looking at ways to speed up cost- cuts at the lender, dubbed ‘Totally Shambolic Bank’ in 2018 after a gigantic IT glitch that left 2million customers locked out of their online accounts.

Last November TSB named 82 branches that were due to shut before the end of 2020. TSB will then be left with 454 branches and there are fears that more closures are on the way. Over the past five years the UK has lost a third of its bank branches. And accessing banking services has been made even harder by the pandemic, with branches reducing opening hours.

Millions of people – particularly the elderly and vulnerable – rely on bank branches for essential services such as withdrawing cash and paying their bills. But a further 247 branches are expected to disappear this year, leaving customers with 35 per cent fewer than they had in 2015.

Critics argue coronavirus has accelerated the ‘death of cash’, with many shops accepting only contactless payments.

A TSB spokesman said: ‘Covid-19 has accelerated the use of digital services. When customers visit our branches, their needs tend to be more complex and we need a fully multiskilled workforce to meet them.’