Banco Santander said it plans to shut almost a fifth of its branches in Britain in response to the increasing uptake of online banking.
The Spanish lender’s UK arm will close 140 branches, bringing the total number across the country down to 614.
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It expects to be able to redeploy only a third of the 1,270 staff affected, meaning there would be about 840 redundancies. The group said it would try to find alternative roles for staff where possible.
Santander joins other major UK high street banks, including Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LON:LLOY), Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (LON:RBS) and Barclays PLC (LON:BARC), in shutting branches to cut costs and concentrate on building up digital banking operations to fend off competition from online rivals.
Over the past 30 years, Britain has lost nearly two-thirds of its bank and building society branches. According to research by consumer campaign group Which?, the number of branches fell to 7,586 in November last year from 20,583 in 1988.
Santander said it was closing the branches because footfall had fallen by 23% over the past three years. The lender will spend £55mln on refurbishing about 100 of the remaining branches.
Susan Allen, head of retail and business banking, said: “The way our customers are choosing to bank with us has changed dramatically in recent years, with more and more customers using online and mobile channels.
“As a result, we have had to take some very difficult decisions over our less visited branches, and those where we have other branches in close proximity.”
In contrast, Metro Bank has been rolling out more branches in prime locations across the country.
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In a trading update on Wednesday, the challenger bank said it had opened stores in Bath, Crawley, Northampton, Putney, Ashford, and Piccadilly in the fourth quarter and opened another store in Moorgate in January. A further seven stores are in advanced planning stages or under construction.
Metro Bank branches are open seven days a week and this has proven a popular way of getting more customers on board.