Yorkshire Building Society is closing a number of its branches and scrapping its Norwich & Peterborough brand.
The Yorkshire said it plans to close 20 Yorkshire Building Society branches and 28 Norwich & Peterborough branches from September this year, putting over 400 jobs at risk.
This will leave a high street network of 260 branches and agencies across the UK, with Yorkshire Building Society as the sole high street brand.
The Society plans to close its Norwich & Peterborough current accounts to existing customers, and withdraw the brand from the high street over the next year.
The Yorkshire said the driving forces behind the proposed branch closures are shifts in market conditions and an increasing desire among customers to go online rather than on the high street.
The Norwich & Peterborough brand has been part of Yorkshire Building Society since 2011.
Mike Regnier, chief executive of Yorkshire Building Society, said: “As a mutual, it is important that we always act in the best long-term interests of our membership and evolve the business in line with their changing needs. We believe these proposals give us greater focus on providing existing and future members with the things they want from us most: a safe place for their savings and funding to buy their own home, and providing these in an easy and simple way.
“We therefore no longer believe it is the right commercial position for us to continue to maintain these 48 branches across the N&P and Yorkshire network.”
The announcement comes just days after the news that Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank is shutting 79 branches with 400 job losses.
HSBC
Earlier this week, HSBC revealed that it will be closing 62 of its UK branches in a move which it blames on the rise of mobile and internet banking.
It comes on top of the 55 branches already earmarked for closure this year, meaning a total of 117 branches will be closed by the end of the 2017.
The move is expected to result in 180 redundancies and will leave HSBC with 625 branches by the end of the year.
The lender also confirmed that 204 IT jobs were under threat.
Dominic Hook, Unite national officer, said: “Today is a dark day for hundreds of HSBC staff who will arrive at work to be told that they could lose their job as their branch closes or their IT role is cut.
“Unite is deeply concerned that this large branch closure programme will be devastating not only for staff but also for the loyal HSBC customers who will lose their community branch.”
The high street lender said the cuts were necessary due to the sharp increase in customers banking online rather than using branches.
Francesca McDonagh, HSBC head of retail banking and wealth management for UK and Europe, said: “The way our customers bank with us is changing. More customers are using mobile and internet banking than ever before, innovation such as Touch and Voice ID has proved extremely popular, and fewer people are using branches.
“More than 90% of our interactions with customers are now through our digital channels – an increase from 80% last year.”
Hook is calling on the banking industry to rethink “such branch culling exercises”.
“Without doubt customer service in financial services will suffer if our high streets are left with no local branches. The banking industry must act to prevent confidence in our banking system falling further.”
HSBC said it will seek to redeploy as many of the people impacted as possible.
