Brits sound alarm on branch closures as Lloyds and Natwest shutter sites
Over half of Brits struggle to speak to a real person when they need support, fresh research shows, underscoring the challenge facing banking customers as more top lenders shutter their branches.
Research from credit information service CRIF showed six in ten consumers were unable to get the support required due to bank branch closures.
This comes after a staggering 6,300 bank and building society sites closed in the last decade – equal to around 53 a month, according to data from Which.
Barclays and Natwest have closed the most sites at 1,236 and 928.
Over 370 closures are pencilled in for the coming year, with Halifax and Santander leading the pack at 99 and 95. Meanwhile, Barclays and Nationwide have vowed to pause branch closures in a bid to attract more customers and reassure existing ones.
One in five UK consumers said they were worried about the impact of continued closures over the next five years.
Sara Costantini, regional director for the UK and Ireland at CRIF, said: “The findings highlight the difficult tightrope that banks now need to walk, balancing the need to ensure their digital services remain cutting edge and up to scratch, which has become a competitive area for so many, without losing the personal touch that more traditional services offer.”
Bank staff shrug off closures
More than half of respondents also said banks were putting less importance on serving customers than they did five years ago.
Despite the clear pleas from customers, a quarter of senior banking professionals dismissed business challenges from closures.
Costanini said: “While many working in the sector don’t see this as a major challenge to their business, bank branch reductions are continuing to fuel concerns over the quality of customer services and what further closures may mean for the future.”
She added the reduction in physical services came from a “knock-on” impact of the rapid transition towards digital banking.
British banking juggernauts have raced to bulk up their tech offering in the last year as they faced mounting pressures from the digital capabilities of challenger banks.
City AM revealed earlier this year Lloyds Banking Group had placed some 6,000 IT jobs under review as part of the plan to “supercharge” its in-house tech expertise.
Meanwhile, HSBC’s operating expenses spiked three per cent last year to $33bn, which the firm said was due to “higher spend and investment in technology”.
On Monday, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced City banks would be allowed to experiment with tech giant Nvidia’s AI offering.
The FCA said it was launching a “supercharged sandbox” to help “speed up innovation”.
Banks turn to tech but outages dominate
Whilst lenders scale up their tech, firms have still dealt with a spate of outages that have left customers unable to access accounts.
Treasury Committee data showed nine of the UK’s biggest banks and building societies were down for over 803 hours – the equivalent of 33 days – over the last two years.
Just last Friday, Natwest customers became the latest to suffer an outage after they were unable to access their mobile app.
Firms have been quick to direct blame at third-party suppliers, but outages have unveiled a persistent demand for in-person banking and cash services.
A scathing Treasury committee report warned the UK risked a “two-tier society” if the government does not act on cash acceptance.