'Elderly will be hit hardest’ by plan to shut 500 banks
BANK bosses are set to close more than 500 high street branches leaving many communities without as much as a free cash machine.
Industry chiefs will be allowed to abandon their pledge to keep open the “last banks in towns” in a move which campaigners say will hit elderly people particularly hard.
Lloyds, which received a £20billion taxpayer-funded bailout at the height of the financial crisis, intends to shut 200 branches in the next three years.
NatWest has said it will close 99 branches this year and the Co-Operative Bank is cutting 57 by August.
Barclays and HSBC are expected to follow suit. Leaked documents reveal they will have to give customers just three months notice.
When bank chiefs began talks with Business Secretary Vince Cable last year, campaigners hoped they would stick to a pledge to protect the last branches in rural communities.
However, the promise is not included in an industry guidance document.
A lot of elderly people want to use a bank branch, they like the feeling of security
Instead it concentrates on arrangements for closing more than 500 branches and recommends customers who lose their bank use telephone or internet services instead.
Last year 479 branches closed across the UK.
Of those, 124 were the last serving their community.
A British Bankers’ Association spokesman said: “Dramatic increases in the number of people banking on their smartphones mean many banks are seeing a decline in the number of people coming through their branch doors.
"Closing a branch is not a decision that is taken lightly.”
But Mervyn Kohler, special adviser to Age UK, says: “A lot of elderly people want to use a bank branch, they like the feeling of security.
"There is a sense that smart phones with all the apps, and conducting transactions online, is a technology too far.”
