News in Brief

Understanding the Impact of Branch Closures in the UK

The UK Government has commissioned an independent review to examine the impact of bank branch closures. 6,719 bank and building society branches have closed across the UK since 2015. 20% of UK consumers say bank branch closures are making it harder to access financial services compared with 12% in Poland and 16% in Germany. Only 60% of UK consumers say they can speak to a real person when applying for financial products compared with a European average of 69%.

Lloyds Bank has recently announced that it will close a further 79 branches this year on top of the 240 already announced.

The UK’s Nationwide Building Society has committed to keep its branch network unchanged until 2030. In 2025 its number of unique branch visitors rose 5.1% on 2024. Where it became the last branch in town in 2025, which was in 155 places, current account openings rose by 29% year-on-year. In the third quarter of 2025, Nationwide recorded the highest current account switching net gains (41,450), more than four times higher than second placed Monzo which won 9,934 switches.