More than one-in-three branches (36%) have been closed by the UK’s eight largest banks since the financial crisis kicked off in earnest 10 years ago today
In August 2007, the country’s major retail financial institutions – Barclays, RBS, Lloyds, HBOS, HSBC, Santander (and its subsequent building society acquisitions), Nationwide, Clydesdale/Yorkshire and Cooperative/Britannia – operated a combined branch network of 11,365 outlets.
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Today that figure has shrunk to 7,207 outlets, a net reduction of 4,158 branches.
In percentage terms, troubled Co-op Bank (including Britannia) has been the most aggressive in terms of closures, down by 73% from 355 in 2007 to only 95 units today.
HSBC is down by almost 60% from 1,501 units then to 625 today while Clydesdale/Yorkshire has almost halved its network from 330 to 170 outlets in the same period.
Branch closures at Barclays, RBS and Lloyds and Santander are all around the 30% mark.
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By GlobalDataBarclays has reduced its network by a net 501 outlets to 1,309 while Santander has axed a net 445 branches to 841 from the 1,286 outlets it acquired when it bought Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and Bradford& Bingley.
RBS (with NatWest) is down from 2,278 in 2007 to 1,518 today. Lloyds (with HBOS) has reduced its network of 3,042 units to 2,038 today made up 1,140 Lloyds-branded units, 657 Halifax and 241 Bank of Scotland.
