Santander to close 111 UK branches

Retail banking giant Santander will close 111 branches across the UK amid an ongoing shift towards mobile and online banking as fewer customers choose to enter its brick and mortar locations.

Santander said roughly 840 staff will be impacted by the closures, although the bank vowed to look for other roles for impacted staff within the business after the long-term trend was accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Branch usage by customers has fallen considerably over recent years so we have made the difficult decision to consolidate our presence in areas where we have multiple branches relatively close together," said Santander's head of branches Adam Bishop.

Santander's High Street presence will drop to 452 branches as a result of the move. However, the bank stated the majority of closing branches were within three miles of another location, with the furthest being five miles away.

"All are within half a mile of at least two free-to-use ATMs and one mile of the nearest Post Office," said Santander, which also noted that in the two years before the pandemic, the number of transactions handled in branches fell by a third while mobile and online transactions grew 20% each year.

Santander also said it will move its UK headquarters from London to Milton Keynes and close offices in Bootle, Newcastle, London and Manchester before the end of 2021.