A MAJOR bank will slash opening hours across 40 branches in another blow to the high street.
The Co-operative Bank will cut hours across some of it’s physical sites by up to three hours and 18 of the impacted stores will close for one day out of the working week.
These changes are set to come into place in January 2026 and the firm is not permanently closing any branches.
Up to 25 of the impacted sites will also close on Saturdays.
Starting next year, its Brighton branch will no longer open on a Thursday and will only trade from 9:30am until 2:30pm.
Currently, the branch opens at 9:30am until 5pm and also opens on a Thursday.
A branch in Caerphilly will also no longer open on Wednesday and slash its hours from 9am to 4pm to 10am to 2pm. It will also be closed on Saturdays.
Elsewhere, Co-op‘s Southampton site will close on a Thursday and Saturday and slash its opening hours by two hours.
It will now open at 10am to 2pm on the four days it trades.
The bank, which has 2.5million customers, said it was making the changes based on “customer demand”.
They said: “Our branch opening hours are based on customer demand, and we’ve published impact assessments on our website to explain why any change is being made”.
More and more youngsters choose to bank online, sinking demand for physical services.
Co-op said that where a branch is closed on a weekday it will make sure the nearest branch will be open.
Visit our branch locator for full details of all branch opening hours.
You can find your nearest branch by visiting, www.co-operativebank.co.uk/help-and-support/contact-us/branch-finder/.
It marks one of the first big shake ups since the group closed 18 branches over the pandemic, resulting in 350 job losses.
More banking changes
Co-op is not the only bank which is shaking up operations.
Lloyds, Halifax, NatWest and Bank of Scotland will close a total of 119 branches over the next few months.
Halifax, which is a part of Lloyds group, is also set to reduce its estate before the end of the year.
The bank has previously said that it had a 48% drop in face-to-face transaction at the various branches over the past five years.
The chain will close a branch in Barrow-in-Furness on September 10, and then another site in Bexleyheath in October 2025.
Halifax will shut a total of 23 branches before the end of the year.
NatWest has earmarked 46 branches for closure with a further eight listed but without dates.
Meanwhile, Bank of Scotland is closing four of its branches in the remaining months of 2025.
That includes one in the popular tourist town of Pitlochry.
The chain will have closed a total of 11 sites when the year draws to a close.
And it’s not just Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland shutting branches.
Elsewhere, Santander revealed plans this year to close 95 branches and reduce hours at another 50.
Customers being forgotten
Customers are being forgotten, writes The Sun’s Head of Consumer, Tara Evans.
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.