Lloyds Banking Group says 'digitization' will power more branch closures Lloyds Banking Group — the £18.67 billion turnover UK-based bank — has promised that it will continue to use “digitization” to power a program of branch closures. On a call to investors, the UK household name said it had invested £3 billion over three years, and £4 billion over five years, in transformation, a large chunk of …
I strayed from their clutches years ago. I'd strayed into them when HSBC closed the branch in my preferred location. Lloyds then closed their branch there too. Had that one still been open I might not have been antagonised by the surly staff at two other branches.
The problem customers have now is lack of alternatives as they're all more or less at the bottom of their respective barrels although still striving to get lower. We need HMG to mandate a reasonable (i.e. considerably higher than at present) density of branches in order to for banks to retain their licences. No, "banking hubs" won't cut it, they need staff empowered to act on the bank's behalf.
If people want branches to stay open, they need to use them regularly. You can't really expect any company to pay staff to sit around doing nothing (as seems to be the case in my local Lloyds) just so that they are there for you when you drop in once a year to pay in a cheque.
It's not even this - branches need to stay profitable. In the old days, people went to branches for their loans, their mortgages, for insurances. A branch was a salesroom where banks could sell products and make a profit. The counter service was just something they had to offer on the side.
Now, we do it all online, so branches are just expensive service buildings that cost money to run and make no profit.
But they are still doing all that marketing and upselling and tracking their customers' behaviour to sell them non-bank -related advertising too, so the sales and profit are still there. The only difference now is that these numbers appear on a different part of the spreadsheet and so the branches appear to be loss making.
If you applied the same rules to, say, the CEO's pay and forced him/her to account for every penny of sales and profit that he/she had personally and directly brought into the company then they'd be in for a massive pay cut or, more likely, the sack.
Every person and asset in the company doesn't need a line on the P&L account to justify its existence and the banks could afford to keep branches open and still make a decent profit.
I think the banks either do not realise the advantage of having a branch network, or they do not care because they prefer short term profits to long term.
I rarely use my branch, but the fact that the older banks have branches that are occasionally useful (on the rare occasions I need to pay in cheques or cash or need to show them a document or whatever) is what differentiates them from online only banks.
The move away from branch banking is already damaging. I use my middle name and Lloyds refused to accept two cheques because they were made out to [middlename] [surname] not [fristname] [surname]. This never happened when they had branch staff who knew their customers (rather than know your customer meaning they ticked some regulatory boxes). In fact, there was another [firstname] [surname] who also had a Lloyds account but by [middlename] [surname] is unique (definitely in the country, I am pretty sure in the world).
> what differentiates them from online only banks.
The online banks still do all of this without needing a branch. Can pay in cash at the post office, can scan or post cheques (not sure how they'd deal with your middle name scenario), and _everything_ else is done online.
You don't end up with what I went through with Lloyd's, where the website says "call us", the person on the phone says "you need to go into a branch" (20 miles away) and the person in the branch says you need to have booked an appointment because the person (one) who deals with that is only in one day a week.
Branch staff have been disempowered. If you have a problem it's best to try to sort it out face-to-face than on the phone or online. The situation is that I now have to travel some distance to be told they can't help. They enshitify the branches so that there's no point in visiting them and then use the lack of footfall to close them down.
Branches were more than sales points. They were where service was delivered, the service for which customers used the banks.
My problem with Lloyds was that they simply wanted a fee for what used to be just part of the service. The result was that they lost an account which was probably more valuable to them overall than the fee they tried - and failed to grab from me. Had they succeeded that would have been credited to the branch; the loss of business was probably not debited against them.
If they can't attribute the cost of customer churn where it belongs then they can't really get a true picture of what the branches' profit and loss. We see "challenger" banks being set up that are remote only. They're not really challenging the big banks, they're just emulating them. The bank that reverses this policy, established more branches and set one up near me gets my business. If that's not real sales I don't know what is.
I don’t do any banking online, i get money out of the Cashpoint™ (Lloyds) or a Hole In The Wall™ (Barclays) and use the phone bank for everything else. If they shut the phonebank I’ll be pissed off and I do use the branch occasionally but clearly not enough and will now make a greater effort to do so.
I used to use my local Barclays branch on a saturday a lot. There was always a queue for it.
So they closed the counter on Saturdays.
Then they closed the branch, saying it wasn't used enough and the next branch was 16.6 miles away (33 miles by road, 16.6 miles if you swim 14 miles of river).
As that's under 20 miles as the crow flies, its "local".
The opened a banking hub, and their advice, to my face was "You need to find a new high street bank, we can not provide basic banking services to you any longer" (after 17 years of providing them).
The basic services they can't provide: withdrawing cash.
I'll see your river and raise you the Irish Sea. For a while after a branch closure the website of one of the banks I use would apologise that my local branch was now closed and suggest I used the next closest one one in Stranraer or somewhere around there. I live in Northern Ireland.
Alternative view: If they want people to use branches they need to adjust opening hours so people can actually visit them. Example my local HSBC is only open 9.30 to 15.30 monday to friday. Got a 9-5 job that's not within a lunchour's travel time back and forth to the bank? Well you're SOL. Seems to be common in other 'nearby' branches too from what I can see.
"buh..buh... noooooobody viiiiiiiisiiiiiits... we'll have to cloooose the braaaaanch" <HSBC beancounter, probably>
It’s the same race to the bottom at the equally challenged Post Offices- that act as a hub to many banks.
Mine closed and Coop took it over promising hours that followed the main store 06:00-22:00, then they reduced that, then they stopped taking bank cheques despite promising full service.
So Banking to Monzo and parcels to Evei/InPost/Yodel drop-off where I can do business when I want to.
The common purpose of In-person banking and (post Royal Mail forced separation) Post Office fates are so intermingled it beggars belief it’s this bad.
Staff in branches need not do nothing if it’s quiet.
That’s total management failure.
There is plenty of banking admin they can be doing to make the time highly productive and efficient … however disposable cheap offshore people in Bangalore or Manila help the bottom line more.
Last I was in HSBC the Banking Hall advisors job was to put me in a booth and dial a central number. Madness.
There are two problems the banks have. The main one is that people don't use the branches, but it's exacerbated by the UK's assumption that banking has to be free. My bank hasn't had a penny from me since I paid my mortgage off over 20 years ago. Sure, it makes money from the paltry sums in my savings accounts but that's not much and anyone who's got serioius money won't have it in a high-street bank. Most banks now are offering paid-for accounts with travel insurance or something attached but I bet the take-up is small and it will be too little, too late. Unless the government does as you suggest and makes having branches of some sort of bank** at regular spacings around the country a condition of their banking licence then pretty soon there won't be any bank branches left.
I know that you can do some banking at Post Offices there's an annual pay-in limit of £5000 across all accounts - which makes it useless for local businesses if the only bank in town closes.
**for the US readers - in the UK you can do your banking - pay ins, withdrawls, etc., at any bank, not just the one you bank with - and day-to-day banking is all free as long as you're in credit.
banks make money from the paltry sums in your current account as well. not to mention the time it takes for money to transfer between account. it mysteriously takes 3 days for cheques to clear, during which time the banks are making money - according to a lecture I went to from the BACS people the underlying systems can do the clearing overnight
My local branch closed years ago. I might not have used it very often but every time I did there was a queue of customers waiting to be served. That doesn't look like "People not using it". I've moved my account to a different bank. If I have to travel to a branch anyway there's no reason to stick with the old one.
BoS (part of Lloyds) now employs staff to drive customers away from branches. They try to obstruct access to tellers and, if the customer insists, shout their private business across the room. The result of that happening to a friend was the bank's instant loss of two customers.
Lloyds use a black horse as a corporate logo. In the four horsemen of the apocalypse the black horse symbolises economic collapse.
"BoS (part of Lloyds) now employs staff to drive customers away from branches. They try to obstruct access to tellers and, if the customer insists, shout their private business across the room."
Exactly!
Halifax (also part of Lloyds) are happy to employ a zombie to tell people in the queue for _real_ (usually only one) tellers that they also have machines and robots to do stuff.
Er, i wouldn't have come into a branch if i didn't need to speak to.a REAL person!
we DO pay for banking, mainly the £100s of billions we gave them when they fucked the pooch gambling away & we ARE paying by guaranteeing their sodding deposits.
The government should, although it won't, because no government gives a shit about us plebs, enforce a minimum 1 branch for every bank in every town if they want their deposits guaranteed by the tax payer. if they don't like it, they can have their gambling underwritten by whatever warlord the CEO wants to get into bed with.
If these scum are forced to keep branches open (the people who still use them are the people who NEED to use them) as the population gets older, then they'll find a profitable use for them. Just letting them take the easy route of offering no services while at the same time expecting the tax paid to cover their fuckery is depressingly stupid and british
The banks make an absolutely massive amount of money for zero effort, by using their customers liquidity.
Current accounts don't pay any interest at all, and they have roughly half everyone's salary all the time, on average.
A bank borrows short (from deposits) and lends long (as mortgages etc). That's what makes it a bank, and not a security deposit box.
Didn’t help that in 1990 the fucking Tories sold off Post Office owned/ran Girobank to A&L (now Santander) wrecking financial inclusion.
Basic Consumer and Business Banking widely available at every Post Office …. and also distributed State Pensions and Benefits without having to pay an external bank for at profit banking services.
For my barclays account, the closest branch is 16.6 miles away - as the crow flies.
To get there by road is 33 miles each way, with a toll bridge, and parking. Plus the counter is open 1000-1400 mon-fri only, branch is open on Sat, but not the counter.
To get there in the distance they say it is: Walk 1 mile, swim 14.4 miles across the Humber, walk the 1.2 miles from the river to the branch, then return the same way.
Colleagues,
As we continue to deliver against our transformation agenda, it is critical that we maintain alignment between operational realities and narrative positioning.
Operationally, the network will contract further. This is unavoidable. Physical infrastructure no longer generates adequate return on capital and must be rationalised. The role of language is to ensure this is understood not as withdrawal, but as evolution.
Key principles:
Never admit reduction. Every closure is to be described as an “upgrade.” Every cut is an “opportunity.” Customers must believe we are giving, not taking.
Anchor on journeys. “Customer journey” remains our strongest asset. Journeys are indefinite, non-measurable, and can always be reframed as “improving.” A customer who has lost access to their branch is still on a journey - in fact, arguably a more digital one.
Digitisation as inevitability. We do not choose closures; “the future” does. Phrasing must suggest inevitability - customers are becoming more digital, behaviours are shifting, we are responding. By repeating this, we transform imposed change into customer demand.
AI as aspiration. Affluent customers will be reassured by “wealth tools.” For the mass market, the AI message is “empowerment.” In practice, this means nudges around energy bills and grocery budgets. Internally, we acknowledge this is resource triage; externally, it must read as innovation.
Celebrate absence. Our strongest rhetorical play is to treat subtraction as service. Seamless means no staff. Effortless means no branch. Secure means inaccessible. The less there is, the more we must insist the customer is gaining.
Economic backdrop as cover. With households under pressure and expectations lowered, ambition is unnecessary. We can label basic functionality as “reimagined experiences” without risk of disbelief. Customers will accept less if told it is the modern standard.
Remember: the cupboard is not empty, but the growth story is. Our obligation is to narrate contraction as transformation until the distinction disappears.
If we maintain linguistic discipline, decline will not appear as failure, but as the natural progression of banking itself.
I have issues taking cash out over the phone.
I need a branch. They are the only people where I can take out money, being dsylexic and dyscalculic and using signature cards, easily.
I have had to change banks just to have a local branch.
And that was on advice from my original bank. to my face: "You need to find a new high street bank, we can no longer provide basic banking services to you"
Given I've been doing that for over 6 months, tell me about it.
Personal account: Moved to Virgin (Yorkshire). Listed on their website that they can provide the right card. When we set it up I was told I needed to go into branch to complete paperwork for the right card.
Went in the next day, explained the issue "I'm not sure we do that", so I said it's on the website and the telephone team told me to come in, got the reply "Oh, if it's on the website, we must do it, excuse me while I check", and she went into the back, was gone about 5 mins. Came back, she'd looked up the info, printed the paperwork, filled out half of it in advance, then come back to involve me. And I asked if it would help if she took scans of my ID to go onto the system to help others dealing with me in the future "Oh, yes! that's a good idea, let me add that too.." And I was left with the view of "this is how I want it to work, being helpful, not the 'go away, you are too much trouble'" instead of how it was with Barclays.
I can't use the virgin app, but I can use the online banking.
Business account: had to go to Lloyds - tried Virgin, but their online banking for business needs their app to work (unlike the personal account banking), and I can't use the app. So had to use a different bank for business as opposed to personal, which makes things a little more complicated.
I don't use banking phone apps, because they're not secure. They're not secure primarily because the device they're running on is not secure.
I don't bank-by-web because web sites are not secure.
I don't use automatic transfers because they're implemented by a bunch of things out of my control, and have no visibility into.
Yes, human tellers can and do make mistakes, and it's mostly computerised behind the scenes anyway, but when things go wrong (and for me, they have), I can hold up a deposit receipt as independent proof when I say to the bank, "Where's my money?"
as the consultants in their 20/30/40 make these arsehole decisions, in the same way the morons at the DWP , GDS et al insist on shovelling everything online & we slide headlong into another situation where the aristocracy & establishment will be crying for the kids they have been fucking over for the last 2 decades of their lives to take up faulty US arms, supllied faulty US intelligence & secure in the fact that if they make it back theyll be thrown on the streets with no money or support & a privatised NHS to deal with ...
Idiots refuse to acknowledge the population is getting older, many people might not be using the bank branch which means, considering what a genuine pain in the arse going to one is... the people who ARE using them are the ones who need to. whether that's nervous they don't like or have smart phones, don't like or have the internet or considering the slap dash uselessnesses of British banking & the IT industry as a whole, don't want their money at the mercy of some dodgy email.
As ever the decision makers think that everyone is like them, that everyone wants or can use internet banking & internet government services & seeing that lloyds wonderfullyv is shifting its IT back out to India after shifting it back recently for "security reasons", make it's time i start putting cash in my mattress again & pay for the bills with a postal order sent by carrier pigeon.
"whether that's nervous they don't like or have smart phones, don't like or have the internet or considering the slap dash uselessnesses of British banking & the IT industry as a whole, don't want their money at the mercy of some dodgy email."
You missed out on one, like me: People who _can't_ use the app.
Take barclays. I have a chip and sign card because I can't remember a 4 digit pin. To use the Barclays app you need to set up a 5 digit pass code (Quote barclays: We understand you can't remember a 4 digit PIN, but this is a 5 digit pass code, not a PIN, so you should be able to remember that because it's a passcode not a PIN"), and then link it to your accounts by authenticating it with a PIN Sentry and your Chip and PIN card...
So it's an app I can't sign in to due to the requirement of access, and can't link to my accounts because it needs a card type I don't have.
After being complained at by the spotty youngster in the bank the other day to move everything to online phone banking using their app, I pointed out that my phone is an antique and unlikely to run it, but more importantly why can I not load the phone app with say £100 via online banking, so if I lose the phone/have it stolen I can only lose £100 max
But then online/phone banking is only as secure as the device its running on. "but our systems are secure " etc etc... then why do you not use 2 factor authetication when your customer service department phones me up ,which was the actual reason I was at the bank to start with as I did not know it was them (having told them to fuck off previously ... oops sorry Catherine from account management at <my bank> ).
Still.. found out I had more money than I thought... until Mrs Roach found the printed out balance enquiry in my back pocket........
old fart .. because I are one
Let's face it, the entire banking system and concept of customer service is broken. If you remove all the face to face alternatives, not surprisingly the online uptake grows. Who would have guessed!
It also seems that banks make the rules up as they go along. The number of times a 'You can do this online' becomes 'you have to come into the branch' (or the reverse) is astounding with inconsistent interpretation by staff members unaware of their own standard procedures.
A large portion of the population still or will forever find digital access difficult or impossible. My mother-in-law is partially deaf (phone calls not much use), partially sighted (tablets etc. pointless), has no reliable 4/5G or fibre (so no internet anyway). The only way she can bank is by visiting a branch, even if it means a member of the family taking there. A 60 mile round trip for the closest relative.
Think of your future self as an elderly person with failing faculties who still needs access to banking. Maybe a grim prospect.
Another point, even Non-Profit Charities now pay transaction fees on cheques etc. The concept of 'free' banking is a myth.
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