800 BANK BRANCHES SHUT IN ONE YEAR
at least 800 bank branches have been shut down this year – at a rate of more than two a day.
The closures, which are devastating for smaller towns and villages, have been led by Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, Santander and Natwest owner RBS.
The loss of 802 branches is thought to be a record for one year – the eight major groups shut down 1,000 between them over 2015 and 2016. They insist the changes are justified by the switch to online banking.
But campaigners believe the closures are hitting vulnerable customers and damaging small firms in more remote areas.
Worse is to come, with RBS scheduled to slash 259 outlets – a quarter of its network – within six months. Lloyds plans to axe 49.
Wes Streeting, who sits on the Commons Treasury committee, urged the banks to change course. ‘Customers in rural and isolated communities will be concerned to hear the clanging chimes of doom ringing over the future of their local bank branches this Christmas,’ said the Labour MP.
‘It’s time for banks to listen to customers who value their local branches and give them the present they’re looking for by calling a halt to these closures.’
Campaigners say losing a bank branch can kill
off life in a village because neighbouring stores often rely on it to drum up trade.
Customers miss out as well, especially those with poor broadband connections that make online banking difficult.
Many are forced to travel to access counter services.
James Daley, of the consumer group Fairer Finance, said: ‘Banks need to remember they have a responsibility to communities as well as their shareholders. We all need to work together to ensure branches are protected.’
The five biggest banks now have fewer than 6,000 branches, compared with 11,240 two decades ago.
The latest cutbacks have been led by RBS, which was bailed out with £46billion of taxpayers’ money in 2008 and is still 71.5 per cent owned by the public. It has shut 244 branches this year.
RBS says the number of customers using branches has fallen 40 per cent since 2014 and transactions using mobiles are up 73 per cent over the same period.
Earlier this month a dozen villages and towns in rural Scotland were told they would be left without a local bank.
RBS will close one in three of its banks north of the Border – 62 in total – between May and June 2018, leaving residents up to 40 miles from their nearest bank.
In Lanarkshire, Biggar, Douglas and Carnwath will all be without a bank when RBS leaves. Tongue, in Sutherland, Gretna in Dumfriesshire and Comrie in Perthshire will also suffer when RBS pulls out. Customers in Beauly, Inverness-shire; Huntly, in Aberdeenshire; and Inveraray, in Argyll, will all be forced to bank elsewhere as will those in Melrose, Roxburghshire, and Bannockburn, Stirlingshire.
Residents on the Isle of Barra will soon have to travel more than three hours by road and ferry to the Lochboisdale branch on South Uist.
Lloyds, owner of Halifax and Bank of Scotland, has ditched 195 branches – taking its total below 1,000. HSBC has shed 117 branches, Barclays 98, Santander 23, TSB 37 and Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banking Group 78.
Mike Cherry, of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: ‘It’s disappointing to hear that such a huge number of bank branches have closed their doors this year.’
The closures come on top of a push by the big lenders to slash ATM numbers. Banks are demanding a cut in the fees they pay to independent operators, which campaigners claim could see as many as 5,000 towns and villages lose their free cash machines.
A spokesman for banking lobby group UK Finance said: ‘Decisions to close down branches are only ever taken after all other options, like reducing opening hours and staff numbers, have been exhausted.’