A major banking group has announced it will close 136 high street branches in a massive blow for customers.
Lloyds Banking Group has said it plans to axes sites from its Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland brands.
The finance giant will shut 61 Lloyds, 61 Halifax and 14 Bank of Scotland branches between May this year and March 2026.
The closure plan comes weeks after Lloyds shook up its branch business to allow customers of Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland to use stores across any of its brands for in-person banking.
Lloyds blamed the decision to shut the branches on customers shifting away from banking in person to using mobile services.
It said that all workers at the affected branches will be offered jobs elsewhere in the company.
A spokeswoman for the business said: ‘Over 20 million customers are using our apps for on-demand access to their money and customers have more choice and flexibility than ever for their day-to-day banking.
‘Alongside our apps, customers can also use telephone banking, visit a community banker or use any Halifax, Lloyds or Bank of Scotland branch, giving access to many more branches.
Lloyds Banking Group has taken the decision to close 136 of its high street branches
Halifax is another one of the brands due to reduce its number of brick and mortar stores, with 61 ear-marked to shut between May this year and March 2026
‘Customers can also do their everyday banking at over 11,000 branches of the Post Office or in a Banking Hub.’
Banks and building societies have closed 6,214 branches since January 2015, at a rate of around 53 each month, according to consumer champion Which?
Meanwhile in the wake of the Horizon IT scandal, the Post Office plans to close 115 branches – leaving many communities with no bricks-and-mortar site to access their money or discuss financial issues.
Last month, Lloyds unveiled plans to scrap 101 of its high street branches in 2025.
While many Britons now use their bank’s apps or telephone banking to manage their cash, there remains a large populations who are unable to do so.
According to Age UK, only 14 per cent of those aged 85 and old bank online, with 58 per cent relying on face-to-face banking.
The wave of branch closures have triggered fears that elderly, isolated Brits will be hit hardest.
Speaking about the closures set to take place this year, a spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group said last month mobile banking was ‘more popular than ever, with over 19.5 million customers’ using the group’s app.
Meanwhile the Bank of Scotland will close 14 of its branches over the same period
‘Alongside our app, customers can bank online, over the phone, at a Banking Hub, a Post Office or by speaking to one of our Community Bankers,’ the official added.
NatWest Group, which comprises NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank, has closed 1,428 branches since January 2015 – the most of any banking group, Which? research revealed.
Lloyds Banking Group was hot on NatWest Group’s heels though, shuttering 1,243 locations over the same period.
Which? also reported that Barclays is the individual bank that has most dramatically decreased its branch numbers, with 1,228 branches now closed over the last nine years.
In May this year Which? said that by the end of 2024 there will be 33 parliamentary constituencies without a single bank branch.
While the rate of closures had initially appeared to slow down since it reached a peak in 2017, the researchers said that in ‘recent years there has been a troubling surge’.
During the pandemic, with Britain at a standstill, branch closures dropped to only 369 in a single year, but that number was outstripped within the first three months of 2021.
Bank bosses were accused of ‘engaging in a race to close branches’ after a new regulatory regime came into effect in September 2024 when the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) introduced measures to ensure the ‘reasonable provision of cash deposit and withdrawal services.’
Sam Richardson, deputy editor of Which? Money, said: ‘This milestone of more than 6,000 bank branch closures in just nine years underscores the seismic shift that has taken place in terms of our banking habits and the character of the British high street.
