Two in three bank branches in the UK closed their doors to loyal customers in the past decade, new figures reveal.
It’s no secret that banks have been shutting across the country in droves, but now the full scale of that is emerging.
Between January 2015 and December 2024, 6,609 bank and building society branches closed, figures shared by consumer watchdog Which? show.
It means that 67 per cent of the branch network has been destroyed in just ten years as providers shut up shop in favour of offering online services, which cost less to run.
The worst offender is NatWest, which also owns the Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank. Between these three providers, some 1,431 branches have shut.
Some 381 bank and building society branches have closed already this year
Next is Lloyds Banking Group – made up of Lloyds, Bank of Scotland and Halifax. It closed its doors in 1,252 locations between the start of 2015 and the end of 2024.
Meanwhile some 1,230 Barclays branches have closed as well as 477 Santander outlets. HSBC has shut 743 branches.
The closures have also affected building societies. Nationwide closed 95 branches, which were all shut before it made a pledge that none will close before 2030, which it last week extended from 2028.
This year, across the industry, 381 branches have closed, with a further 51 still scheduled to shut before the end of next month. And 71 are already pencilled in for 2026.
When the big banks were quizzed on how many branches they had remaining, the figures were disturbingly low.
Barclays said it had ‘more than 200’ full-service branches – the lowest of the bunch – though it did say it does not plan to announce any further closures next year.
HSBC says it has just 327 remaining, and that in 2024 it committed to announcing no new closures until at least 2026.
Just 385 NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank branches have their doors open to customers, while Santander has only 368 left.
Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland come out top, with 705 outlets between them remaining, after announced closures are complete.
Banks have previously given excuses for the closures such as reduced footfall and a shift to online banking. But it’s not just rural locations or spots with declining high streets that have seen doors to their local branches close.
Providers are now starting to desert thriving towns and commuter belts, too, proving no neighbourhood is safe from the exodus.
Take Wokingham, for example. This Berkshire town is about an hour from London’s centre and is a sought-after spot to live in for those working in the capital.
But it can’t escape the soulless drive towards digital banking.
The busy town centre has seen a succession of branch closures – it has lost three in four years, leaving many of its population with no access to a local branch of the bank they may have been loyal to their entire working life.
Santander left in 2021 while a Barclays branch closed in 2023 and Lloyds followed last year.
Remaining is HSBC (although without a counter service), Newbury Building Society (which doesn’t offer current accounts), a post office and a Nationwide.
Kayleigh Hopkins, who has been the manager of Nationwide Wokingham for more than five years, says there is still a huge appetite in the town for face-to-face banking services.
After the Lloyds branch closed in July last year, Nationwide saw 33 per cent more current account openings than the month before as customers switched to a provider with a presence on their high street.
In places where Nationwide has become the last branch in a town, current account openings were up by 29 per cent last year – and cash machine use at these branches soared by 25 per cent.
Luckily Wokingham resident Pauline Wong, 75, has a bank on the high street as she is with HSBC. But she knows the closure of three major branches hasn’t been kind to her peers.
She says: ‘The closure of the banks here has not been convenient for older people – sometimes you want to deposit cash in a bank.
‘Some older people are not familiar with phones and online banking – it’s very difficult for them. I use online banking but for important things I like to go into the bank.’