RBS to close 54 more branches with hundreds of jobs at risk

Comes in addition to 162 closures announced earlier this year

The lender said the decision to shut branches was a difficult one (Reuters)

Royal Bank of Scotland will close 54 branches in January next year following a review of its operations in England and Wales, leading to 258 job losses.

The latest round of branch shutdowns will be in addition to the 162 closures and 792 redundancies announced in May.

The lender said the “vast majority” of impacted RBS branches in England and Wales are in close proximity to either another RBS or NatWest branch.

RBS had been planning to spin off its retail banking business, including NatWest, as a challenger called Williams & Glyn, under orders from the EU which were a condition of the bank’s bailout during the financial crisis.

However, after the bank said it had failed to find an appropriate buyer for the business, the EU agreed to release it from the obligation to sell the division. Instead, RBS was required to create a £775m fund designed to improve competition in the business banking market.

An RBS spokesperson said: “As we are no longer launching Williams & Glyn as a challenger bank we now have two branch networks operating in close proximity to each other in England and Wales - NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland. As a result we have reviewed our overall branch footprint in England and Wales and have made the difficult decision to close 54 Royal Bank of Scotland branches.

“Customers of Royal Bank of Scotland in England and Wales will be able to use NatWest branches and local post offices for their everyday banking needs. We will now focus on investing in our Royal Bank network in England and Wales to make sure customers have a consistent range of products and services wherever they bank, be it Scotland, England or Wales.”

Rob MacGregor, national officer at Unite the union, said the group’s decision to close more banks was “disgusting”, and said the North West would be losing the largest number of branches.

“It is utterly disgusting that Royal Bank of Scotland has the audacity to announce that yet more important local bank branches will permanently close their doors,” he said.

“This announcement heaps further misery on communities across England and Wales that have already seen the demise of local banking services as branches that were signposted by the bank earlier in 2018 as an alternative for customers whose branches were closing, now suffering a similar fate.”

Mr MacGregor added: “Today another 54 local communities will lose the vital local bank branch which many customers rely on and over 340 staff will lose their jobs. The disabled, elderly and many local businesses will today be deeply disappointed that their bank has chosen to withdraw from their community and no longer provide them with the access to banking services which we all deserve.”