NatWest and Lloyds to axe a further 81 bank branches

theguardian.com:

NatWest and Lloyds are to axe a further 81 bank branches as both announced fresh cuts to their high street networks.

Lloyds Banking Group is closing 39 branches – 26 Lloyds Bank outlets, nine Halifax branches and four Bank of Scotland outlets – between July and September this year. NatWest Group said it was shutting 42 branches.

The moves come days after it emerged that Barclays is closing 14 more outlets.

Both Lloyds and NatWest argued that customers were spurning traditional counter services in favour of banking online and via mobile phones.

The consumer group Which? said on Thursday that UK banks and building societies had closed, or announced the closure of, 5,498 branches since January 2015, at a rate of about 54 each month. It said NatWest Group, which comprises NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank, will have closed 1,257 branches by the end of 2023, “the most of any banking group”.

In January this year, Lloyds announced the closure of 18 Halifax branches and 22 Lloyds sites. Last October, NatWest said it would be axing 43 branches during the first half of this year. And at the end of November, HSBC said it would be shutting a further 114 outlets between April and August this year.

Lloyds said that as the use of digital banking had grown, the number of branch visits had fallen. The 39 branches being axed had seen visits fall by an average of 59% – and some up to 69% – in the last five years.

A Lloyds Banking Group spokesperson said:“Our customers are increasingly using digital channels to manage their money – we now have over 20 million regular digital users, so it’s important we continue to develop the online services our customers want to use.”

They added: “Our branches will continue to be an option for our