114 High Street Branches Close

‘Local bank’ urged to scale back mass cull

HSBC will be shutting another 114 branches in its latest mass cull.

The bank, which globally made £15.7billion profit last year, blames a 65% fall in regular customers using branches in the past five years.

Once advertised as “the world’s local bank”, HSBC will close as many as six branches a day between April and the end of August next year, including in

Coleraine and Portadown. The first for the chop, on April 18, are in Blandford, Dorset; Bexhill, E Sussex; Abergavenny, Monmouthshire; Cromer, Norfolk; St Ives, Cambs; and St Austell, Cornwall.

HSBC claimed that since the pandemic some branches closing serve fewer than 250 customers a week.

Unite union’s Dominic Hook urged HSBC to reconsider, saying most of the closures will mean there is no branch within three miles. “It is disgraceful 25 communities will be left to travel over 15 miles to the nearest branch.”

Consumer group Which? said HSBC has closed 628 branches since 2015, and 189 since 2019. It “risks further cutting adrift those who rely on cash”.

HSBC claimed that “tens of millions of pounds” will be spent updating its 327 surviving UK branches.

GOING Bank’s closures continue