New Survey Confirms 76% Of UK Public View Local Bank Branches As Important!

An excellent article by Zoe Wood in the The Guardian.

As the Payment Choice Alliance has highlighted before, Lloyds Bank has been particularly active in destroying genuine face-to-face customer service by closing their branches. Surrey outside the M25 has lost at least 11 Lloyds Bank in recent years, with only three remaining - and the branch in Camberley has probably only been kept because it also services customers from the immediately neighbouring counties of Berkshire and Hampshire…

As the article notes, Banking Hubs COULD replace lost bank branches - but NOT if there are only going to be 350 of them, the paltry number promised by 2029.

The Payment Choice Alliance has confirmed that there needs to be a minimum of 1200 fully equipped Banking Hubs, open 6 days a week, all with 24/7 cash access via ATMs - and with full face-to-face financial services advice from staff trained in all the matters of concern to the public.

The current “one banker a day” from each major bank is a pretence of providing genuine face-to-face banking.

The Payment Choice Alliance YouGov survey mentioned in the article found that over 50% of UK adults want to enjoy the choice of having ALL their banking needs provided for in a local branch - that’s over 30 MILLION PEOPLE - and over 70% want to be able to do at least some of their financial services business in a local branch.

We will be sharing our survey findings with Richard Lloyd OBE, Chair of the Access to Banking review, who is carrying out his work on behalf of HM Treasury.

What the UK public WANT and NEED is being ignored by the so-called High Street Banks -that MUST change, starting NOW, in 2026.

Source: theguardian.com/money/2026/jun/06/bank-customers-closures-app-branches-high-street