News in Brief

Branch Closures Continue

Deutsche Bank has announced that it will close 150 bank and Postbank branches this year and a further 50 Postbank branches next year. The CEO said that customers are coming to branches less often, preferring to use digital products such as remote advisory video sessions. In January Commerzbank announced it would close 340 branches in Germany.

The Spanish CaixaBank has merged with Bankia. To remove overlaps and take advantage of synergies it will close 1,530 bank branches and reduce its workforce by 8,300, a quarter of the combined banking network.

World Bank figures quoted in a Moody’s rating agency report said that in 2008 Spain had 105 bank branches per 100,000 residents, three times the European average, and that by 2019 this had dropped to 46, still twice the European average. Since 2019 bank branch closures have continued with Banco Santander, Banco Sabadell and BBVA all closing branches and laying off 9,100 staff. Away from Europe, Standard Chartered bank, which operates in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, is halving its branch network down to 400 branches.

Branch Approaches Trialled

The UK’s TSB bank announced that it was closing 164 bank branches, a third of its network, in September 2020. It has now announced it will open 43 ‘pop-up’ sites. These sites have been chosen in locations where it is more than a 20-minute drive to a traditional TSB branch and will be put in places such as town halls, libraries and community centres.

TSB is also launching a pilot programme to help customers access cash. Working with Diebold Nixdorf and Paysafe, customers will be able to use a digital platform to deposit cash in local shops and supermarkets.

SNCB Adds More ATMs

Belgium’s national rail company, SNCB, will increase the number of stations with an ATM from 42 to 79, and the number of ATMs from 58 to 169 machines.

Belgium has an ATM Optimisation Initiative to develop a national network of ATMs, putting an ATM within 5 km of the home or workplace of 95% of the population. Four major banks formed a partnership, Batopin, to run the network and they are collaborating with SNCB with the ten year contract starting on 1 October.

BoE’s Cash Centre to Close

Following an operational review, the Bank of England has announced it will close its cash centre in the northern city of Leeds in 2023 when the current lease expires. The Bank has maintained an operation in Leeds since the establishment of a branch there in 1827. Since 1997, this has focused on cash distribution.

Following the successful transition of English banknotes to polymer, the Bank says it expects demand for distribution of new banknotes to fall in light of their greater durability, together with the continuing trend towards lower transactional usage of cash. Recent research by the financial research consultancy Enryo suggested that cash transactions fell from 7.2 billion in 2019 to 3.4 billion in 2020, a 53% drop.

All services currently provided through the Leeds cash centre will continue at the Debden cash centre just outside London, which is where the printworks run by De la Rue is located. This includes the service to assess and redeem mutilated notes which is currently performed in Leeds.

According to the Bank it remains committed to ensuring that it is represented across the whole of the United Kingdom, and its network of 12 agencies ensures that it remains alert to local economic conditions. Building on this, it has announced a commitment to develop a new northern hub in Leeds.

Prosegur Partners

Santander has teamed up with Prosegur Cash to launch an in-store digital cash management service in Spain that puts the notes and coins merchants accept straight into their bank accounts.

The Cash Today service is designed to guarantee that the cash merchants collect is held in a secure device and contractually insured. It mirrors the benefits of card payments so clients can have the cash confirmed by the device immediately in their Santander bank account. Users can also track all transactions on their Cash Today device in real time online.

Prosegur Cash collects the cash and provides change, and also has a dedicated call centre for the service to solve customer queries and incidents.

Prosegur Cash and Santander say they are targeting supermarkets, logistics, restaurants, service stations, pharmacies, tobacco shops and other businesses.

Loomis Expands

Swedish cash management service provider Loomis has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets and liabilities of SecurePost AG, a subsidiary of Die Schweizerische Post (Swiss Post Group).

The acquisition is through its wholly-owned subsidiary Loomis Schweiz, and includes all relevant customer contracts, employees and operational assets. New commercial agreements with other entities of the Swiss Post Group have been agreed and will take effect at the closing of the transaction, which is valued at approximately CHF 17.5 million.

SecurePost has a nationwide footprint in Switzerland and around 440 employees. Revenues in 2020 were approximately CHF 66 million. In addition to traditional CIT and CMS activities, the company also has a portfolio of 1,300 smart safes, which will be integrated into Loomis Schweiz’s SafePoint portfolio.