NATWEST and Halifax are closing the doors on 39 bank branches for good next month in another blow to Britain’s high streets.
Bank branches continue to close down at pace with hundreds already closing this year and more in the pipeline for the coming months.
More than two dozen NatWest branches will close for good next month[/caption]
Halifax is also set to close 13 of its branches in September[/caption]
Both banks will close a slew of their stores starting from the beginning of next month.
A total of 26 NatWest branches and 13 Halifax branches will pull down the shutters for good in September.
The closures are set to extend into October too as banks grapple with the customer turn toward online and mobile banking.
Banks and building societies have closed a whopping 6,443 branches since January 2015 equating to 53 closures every month, according to to consumer champion Which?
Sam Richardson, Which?’s deputy editor, said that the closures represent a “seismic shift” in how Brits bank.
NatWest
NatWest is just one of the major banks to be closing a swathe of its sites throughout the UK.
According to the Metro, a NatWest spokesperson said that more than 80% of its current account holders use digital services, and over 97% of retail accounts are opened online.
A total of 54 branches will be putting the shutters down this year and since 2015, the NatWest Group — which also includes Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank — has shut 1,409 branches.
The full list of NatWest closures in September are:
- Willerby, September 22
- Abingdon, September 24
- Birmingham (Acocks Green), September 16
- Bicester, September 30
- Cardiff (Canton), September 16
- Cirencester, September 17
- Cwmbran, September 1
- Birmingham (Edgbaston), September 11
- Ely, September 10
- Bristol (Fishponds), September 4
- Halesowen, September 3
- Hinckley, September 17
- Luton (Leagrave), September 15
- Leicester (Melton Road), September 2
- Llangefni, September 4
- Cardiff (Llanishen), September 11
- Melton Mowbray, September 29
- Newmarket (Suffolk), September 24
- Northampton (Weston Favell Shopping Centre), September 15
- Leicester (Oadby), September 10
- Rayleigh, September 2
- Birmingham (Smethwick), September 25
- Sudbury, September 30
- Wickford, September 18
- Wisbech, September 1
- Yate, September 25
Halifax
Halifax has previously reported a 48 per cent drop in face-to-face transaction at their branches in the last five years.
At the time, a spokesperson for Halifax said: “Most customers are now using our mobile banking app, internet banking or calling us instead.
“This means they are using branches less.”
The brand has closed an enormous number of its branches as a result in an effort to cut costs.
The full list of Halifax closures in September are:
- Barrow-in-Furness, September 10
- Brentwood, September 10
- Castleford, September 8
- Cirencester, September 25
- Epsom, September 15
- Erdington, September 24
- London Clapham Junction, September 23
- Long Eaton, September 18
- Nortwich, September 3
- Rhyl, September 23
- Richmond (Surrey), September 16
- Skegness, September 3
- Walkden, September 25
Wider trends
Santander will also be closing a fifth of its branches in a bid to cut costs.
Just last week, the bank closed seven high-street branches with three other sites losing their counter service.
While an estimated 300 Lloyds locations will be closed for good in 2025 and 2026.
The Bank of Scotland is also shutting four of its branches before the end of the year.
Customers being forgotten
Customers are being forgotten, writes The Sun’s Head of Consumer, Tara Evans.
With branches closing and online banking taking over, customers can be left feeling cut off.
We wrote about forgotten customers back in July on our Sun Money pages in our weekly newspaper section.
People like David Elkins, 82, a retired service engineer from Calne, Wilts, who saw his HSBC branch close in 2023 and had to travel ten miles to the next nearest.
He has a kidney issue and needs frequent dialysis, making it impractical.
Banking hubs are emerging as a solution to address the gaps left by widespread closures – but there are not enough of them.
There are plans for 146 of these, but so far there are only 60.
You can use one of the Post Office’s 11,635 branches to perform basic banking tasks, but they don’t allow you to open or close accounts for example.
As of last December, 64% of the branches that were open at the start of 2015 are now closed.
Branch closures peaked in 2017, when 867 sites closed across the UK, more than 70 each month, followed closely by 792 closures in 2018.
But community groups and campaigners point out that the closures are a concern for older people who are less comfortable with digital technology.
Research shows 39 per cent of people aged over 65 do not use online banking, putting them at high risk of financial exclusion.