‘This drip-feeding of closures is driven by profit. We must fight to keep branches open because once they have gone they never return.’ Historically, HSBC has been the worst offender, axeing 386 branches and leaving just 1,263 open in the decade to the end of December 2011. Last year it shut 74 outlets but so far this year it has shut only two. Lloyds TSB has closed 354 branches, leaving 1,625, while NatWest shut 150 over the decade, leaving 1,493 branches. Barclays axed 161 bank branches in the ten years to December 2011, while Santander has shrunk it network by 114 to 1,175. Barclays has an ‘informal’ policy of not shutting a branch where it is the last one remaining in a four-mile radius – but the bank is remembered for closing 171 in one day in 2000. Royal Bank of Scotland is 82 per cent owned by the taxpayer following a £46billion bailout in 2008. As part of the rescue deal the European Commission insisted on the sale of 315 branches – 309 RBS and six NatWest, separate from this year’s closure of 40 branches – but so far no one has come forward since Santander pulled out of a mooted deal last October. A planned sale of 631 branches by Lloyds Banking Group collapsed in April this year. The Co-op pulled out after a £1.5billion black hole was discovered in its own finances.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 23:30:10 +0000
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