Well, at least Lloyd are always by your side…..oh wait!
Can’t have a bank run if there are no banks to run to.
Can’t close the one in my town — they already did so last year. In fact, every single bank (town of 20,000+) on the high street has closed in the last couple of years. There were 4 before. It’s honestly not that much of a pain — although if I ever need to go to a bank in person, it’s now a 90 minute walk there and back — but they took cash machines with them, of course, and it’s still useful to be able to get cash on a handful of occasions a year.
Inevitable both in the climate & the huge Asian shareholders who’ve been pushing for returns and cost cutting. They’ve already just sold off the Canada group
I’ve found that, with all of these branch closures, ironically cheques are far easier to work with than cash again, as you can just pay the cheque in to your bank electronically on your phone.
I am not surprised. My local one closed the counter during lockdown and pushed everyone towards the machines or online. Current staff just go online with you using their laptop instead of mine.
I have accounts with 3 banks, HSBC have been moving away from branch use for a while. I prefer my local Barclays. They have also removed the counter, but the staff seem more engaged and will perform counter services over a desk.
They open after most people start work and close before most people finish work.
Couldn’t go in even if I wanted …
[deleted]
Used to work for a bank, thought it was a job for life.. Oh well! Best thing I did taking redundancy.
Was inevitable after all the PPI scandle. Branches used to hard sell products to customers, so at least they made money. After hard selling and targets were banned, they just became really expensive customer services that cost the banks money to run. Cutbacks started then and have just accelerated with people’s move to digital banking.
Will no doubt see the local news sites and Facebook moaning about how pensioners and businesses will access their money. End of the day, they’re expensive services to provide and the banks are a business who ain’t covering those costs anymore.
Paid a cheque in to my account via my banking app for the first time this week. That’s the only reason I’ve had to go a branch for the last 10 years at least.
They already closed a bunch last year closest one for me is 9 mile away maybe more
Banking hubs are what need to be pushed. One branch that covers dozens of banks. Longer hours and staff trained for all banks.
Banks all pay their fair share.
To be clear, this is not a judgement of their rank and file staff – I have a lot of sympathy for them (you, if you’re one of them), and they don’t create company policy.
But I’m not surprised. For most of us, the bank is closed when we’re off work.
And my local – given, it’s a Barclays – doesn’t have any manned desks on a Saturday, just the automated machines. I went in a few months ago and couldn’t believe it. I live in one of the UK’s largest cities.
That’s more than a quarter of all their UK branches – that’s huge.
I don’t use branch services myself but many people rely on them. Branches may be able to close but banks do need to work together to create shared banking hubs if they’re going to introduce this scale of change.
They should try opening chippy hours. Lunchtimes and afternoon/ evenings, so people who work full time can go if they need to.
What is anyone actually going into a bank for in the first place?
They are completely redundant.
Interesting. I want to open an account for my children, but it says you have to go into a branch for that. ID reasons.
My local HSBC phased out all of their staff, tellers, advisers years ago. Now it’s just an array of machines, and it’s staffed by one person whose job it is to try and get you to avoid making any kind of appointment, and use the machines instead. For customers in my town, things will barely change, and I’m imagining it’s the same case in many other locations too.
That’s a lot of people made redundant. And a lot more competition for me in the financial market.
Great…. that leaves only 1 bank left on my highstreet.
There are certain businesses which should operate outside the usual working hours…
HSBC are shit at answering their phones. They are the worst bank
Whenever I go in to the bank and make a request, the 4 50 year old women who work there always act like I am being completely outrageous and very rudely act exhausted with me then direct me to online banking.
Well this is the price for that. If you don’t want to help me in the branch I will go online. Then you lose your job.
I live in a small town & I genuinely feel like my town is dead.
Everything closing, only jobs are fucking call centers or Amazon factory. Houses are like 250k + despite wages being 19k & most people I know living month to month.
I was fortunate that for a while I had a work from home job that was classed as a London job so I was getting paid like 36k a year at 23. Had to quit due to illness stopping me from being able to function at the job/ the job was kinda screwing me over in some areas. Now that I’ve been unemployed for 4 months and actually going round the town after never stepping outside my house for months (pandemic, poor health & working from home), it’s so sad.
I’m surprised they have any left, my local one closed about 10 years ago.
Remember whenever this country talks about imposing the slightest whiff of financial regulation, HSBC is always the first one to jump on their soapbox and shout about how they’ll just leave then, and it’ll cost us a lot of money and jobs?
Yeah…
my local bank is open from 10-4:30… mon-fri…. who the fk can go in at those times whats the point.
So pretty much every branch in a small town or suburb?
Wholly Molly, I miss read it as HSBC to close 114 beaches – and was wondering what the bank closing beaches? How? What? Then thought maybe Acronis for some beach governing body or smth. Then read comment about people starting work before it opens and finishing after it closes… adding to confusion. Wtf going on. Then spotted… branches…
Jokes on them: HSBC already closed all my local branches years ago!
Not surprised. Most banks won’t take me on even though I’ve run my own multi million pound business. I went bust. So that’s that for them I’m on the shit heal now. Only online banks helped out
I actually tried to put cash into a barclays account last month.
Took 5 different branch visits. Most closed Wednesday for some reason, or close half day. Website branch finder totally out of date. Second last one only accepted cheques via ATM machines.
My local small village centre have lost all their banks now. A few years ago we had a branch of most of them. I can easily get to the next town over, but feel for those who can’t. Not that I’ve really needed to go into a branch in the past few years. Only to put cash in when I’m lucky enough to have some!
Not surprising. The dinosaur banks have been completely surpassed by web/app based banks that can do everything online, offer more features, and everything is instant.
I had to deal with a dinosaur bank a few weeks ago and they made me go into branch for an ID check: something digital banks do instantly online. Closed my account ASAP after that.
Not everyone is online in the UK but they’ve had enough of a chance by now. Perhaps your library can help you with online banking or something? No need for physical bank branches anymore.
disgrace. we used to have 4 banks in the village. none now. where are we all supposed to do our banking???
Curious to see what Metro bank will do, since they seem to pride themselves on their physical branches so much. Last I heard they were also expanding the fastest in terms of branch openings in the UK.
Digital ££ is coming folks!! Everything trackable & traceable
I think the best idea would be to have one universal branch in a town that banks can all have a represnentative at. Sometimes a physical in person chat can be of benefit but the vast majrity of stuff is now online
If only Post Offices had a banking service, you could call it something exotic like Girobank. Oh wait, we did! But the Tories made the Post Office flog off the service to Alliance and Leicester at the end of the 1980s.
Then the government closed down a load of Post Offices because they weren’t doing enough business (wonder how busy they’d have been if the Girobank was still theirs). Now the current government has stopped making benefits and pension payments via the Post Office Card, so more branches will be lost.
I do know about the banking services they provide https://www.postoffice.co.uk/everydaybanking but it’s not much use if the Post Office has closed in your small town or village.
40 comments
Well, at least Lloyd are always by your side…..oh wait!
Can’t have a bank run if there are no banks to run to.
Can’t close the one in my town — they already did so last year. In fact, every single bank (town of 20,000+) on the high street has closed in the last couple of years. There were 4 before. It’s honestly not that much of a pain — although if I ever need to go to a bank in person, it’s now a 90 minute walk there and back — but they took cash machines with them, of course, and it’s still useful to be able to get cash on a handful of occasions a year.
Inevitable both in the climate & the huge Asian shareholders who’ve been pushing for returns and cost cutting. They’ve already just sold off the Canada group
I’ve found that, with all of these branch closures, ironically cheques are far easier to work with than cash again, as you can just pay the cheque in to your bank electronically on your phone.
I am not surprised. My local one closed the counter during lockdown and pushed everyone towards the machines or online. Current staff just go online with you using their laptop instead of mine.
I have accounts with 3 banks, HSBC have been moving away from branch use for a while. I prefer my local Barclays. They have also removed the counter, but the staff seem more engaged and will perform counter services over a desk.
They open after most people start work and close before most people finish work.
Couldn’t go in even if I wanted …
[deleted]
Used to work for a bank, thought it was a job for life.. Oh well! Best thing I did taking redundancy.
Was inevitable after all the PPI scandle. Branches used to hard sell products to customers, so at least they made money. After hard selling and targets were banned, they just became really expensive customer services that cost the banks money to run. Cutbacks started then and have just accelerated with people’s move to digital banking.
Will no doubt see the local news sites and Facebook moaning about how pensioners and businesses will access their money. End of the day, they’re expensive services to provide and the banks are a business who ain’t covering those costs anymore.
Paid a cheque in to my account via my banking app for the first time this week. That’s the only reason I’ve had to go a branch for the last 10 years at least.
They already closed a bunch last year closest one for me is 9 mile away maybe more
Banking hubs are what need to be pushed. One branch that covers dozens of banks. Longer hours and staff trained for all banks.
Banks all pay their fair share.
To be clear, this is not a judgement of their rank and file staff – I have a lot of sympathy for them (you, if you’re one of them), and they don’t create company policy.
But I’m not surprised. For most of us, the bank is closed when we’re off work.
And my local – given, it’s a Barclays – doesn’t have any manned desks on a Saturday, just the automated machines. I went in a few months ago and couldn’t believe it. I live in one of the UK’s largest cities.
That’s more than a quarter of all their UK branches – that’s huge.
I don’t use branch services myself but many people rely on them. Branches may be able to close but banks do need to work together to create shared banking hubs if they’re going to introduce this scale of change.
They should try opening chippy hours. Lunchtimes and afternoon/ evenings, so people who work full time can go if they need to.
What is anyone actually going into a bank for in the first place?
They are completely redundant.
Interesting. I want to open an account for my children, but it says you have to go into a branch for that. ID reasons.
My local HSBC phased out all of their staff, tellers, advisers years ago. Now it’s just an array of machines, and it’s staffed by one person whose job it is to try and get you to avoid making any kind of appointment, and use the machines instead. For customers in my town, things will barely change, and I’m imagining it’s the same case in many other locations too.
That’s a lot of people made redundant. And a lot more competition for me in the financial market.
Great…. that leaves only 1 bank left on my highstreet.
There are certain businesses which should operate outside the usual working hours…
HSBC are shit at answering their phones. They are the worst bank
Whenever I go in to the bank and make a request, the 4 50 year old women who work there always act like I am being completely outrageous and very rudely act exhausted with me then direct me to online banking.
Well this is the price for that. If you don’t want to help me in the branch I will go online. Then you lose your job.
I live in a small town & I genuinely feel like my town is dead.
Everything closing, only jobs are fucking call centers or Amazon factory. Houses are like 250k + despite wages being 19k & most people I know living month to month.
I was fortunate that for a while I had a work from home job that was classed as a London job so I was getting paid like 36k a year at 23. Had to quit due to illness stopping me from being able to function at the job/ the job was kinda screwing me over in some areas. Now that I’ve been unemployed for 4 months and actually going round the town after never stepping outside my house for months (pandemic, poor health & working from home), it’s so sad.
I’m surprised they have any left, my local one closed about 10 years ago.
Remember whenever this country talks about imposing the slightest whiff of financial regulation, HSBC is always the first one to jump on their soapbox and shout about how they’ll just leave then, and it’ll cost us a lot of money and jobs?
Yeah…
my local bank is open from 10-4:30… mon-fri…. who the fk can go in at those times whats the point.
So pretty much every branch in a small town or suburb?
Wholly Molly, I miss read it as HSBC to close 114 beaches – and was wondering what the bank closing beaches? How? What? Then thought maybe Acronis for some beach governing body or smth. Then read comment about people starting work before it opens and finishing after it closes… adding to confusion. Wtf going on. Then spotted… branches…
Jokes on them: HSBC already closed all my local branches years ago!
Not surprised. Most banks won’t take me on even though I’ve run my own multi million pound business. I went bust. So that’s that for them I’m on the shit heal now. Only online banks helped out
I actually tried to put cash into a barclays account last month.
Took 5 different branch visits. Most closed Wednesday for some reason, or close half day. Website branch finder totally out of date. Second last one only accepted cheques via ATM machines.
My local small village centre have lost all their banks now. A few years ago we had a branch of most of them. I can easily get to the next town over, but feel for those who can’t. Not that I’ve really needed to go into a branch in the past few years. Only to put cash in when I’m lucky enough to have some!
Not surprising. The dinosaur banks have been completely surpassed by web/app based banks that can do everything online, offer more features, and everything is instant.
I had to deal with a dinosaur bank a few weeks ago and they made me go into branch for an ID check: something digital banks do instantly online. Closed my account ASAP after that.
Not everyone is online in the UK but they’ve had enough of a chance by now. Perhaps your library can help you with online banking or something? No need for physical bank branches anymore.
disgrace. we used to have 4 banks in the village. none now. where are we all supposed to do our banking???
And HSBC Canada was just sold. Funny coincidence.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rbc-buying-hsbc-canada-1.6667564
Curious to see what Metro bank will do, since they seem to pride themselves on their physical branches so much. Last I heard they were also expanding the fastest in terms of branch openings in the UK.
Digital ££ is coming folks!! Everything trackable & traceable
I think the best idea would be to have one universal branch in a town that banks can all have a represnentative at. Sometimes a physical in person chat can be of benefit but the vast majrity of stuff is now online
If only Post Offices had a banking service, you could call it something exotic like Girobank. Oh wait, we did! But the Tories made the Post Office flog off the service to Alliance and Leicester at the end of the 1980s.
Then the government closed down a load of Post Offices because they weren’t doing enough business (wonder how busy they’d have been if the Girobank was still theirs). Now the current government has stopped making benefits and pension payments via the Post Office Card, so more branches will be lost.
I do know about the banking services they provide https://www.postoffice.co.uk/everydaybanking but it’s not much use if the Post Office has closed in your small town or village.