Thirty towns and villages including Norbury and Jarrow could be bankless in 2024

Vast stretches of the country face being left without a single bank or building society branch next year as relentless closures continue.

Thirty towns and villages across the UK are facing such a possibility, in news that will no doubt worry elderly customers still clinging onto the few physical banking spaces that remain.

Campaigners have warned that they aren’t the only people who rely on bank branches as not everyone has access to the internet and therefore cannot use banking apps.

An investigation by This is Money has revealed the areas at risk of losing their last remnants of the old way of banking, with locations found in Derbyshire, Somerset and London. 

Data compiled by Link, which tracks closures of banks, shows that areas of Wales and Scotland are also at risk of only having digital options for customers and a full list can be seen below.

Thirty towns and villages at risk of being bankless in 2024:

  • Ballymoney, County Antrim – Danske
  • Bolsover, Derbyshire – Lloyds
  • Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire – Virgin Money
  • Colne, Lancashire – Santander
  • Dolgellau, Gwynedd – HSBC
  • Erskine, Renfrewshire – Halifax
  • Flint, Flintshire – TSB
  • Glossop, Derbyshire – Lloyds
  • Guisborough, North Yorkshire – HSBC
  • Holywell, Flintshire – Santander
  • Ilkley, West Yorkshire – Santander
  • Jarrow, South Tyneside – Lloyds
  • Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumbria – NatWest
  • Lampeter, Ceredigion – HSBC
  • Linlithgow, West Lothian – Bank of Scotland
  • Moreton-in-March, Gloucestershire – Lloyds
  • Norbury, South London – NatWest
  • Okehampton, Devon – Lloyds
  • Pickering, North Yorkshire – Barclays
  • Portishead, Somerset – NatWest
  • Renfrew, Renfrewshire – Bank of Scotland
  • Ripon, North Yorkshire – HSBC
  • Saxmundham, Suffolk – HSBC
  • Somerton, Somerset – Lloyds
  • Spennymoor, County Durham – Lloyds
  • Storrington, West Sussex – HSBC
  • Totnes, Devon – Lloyds
  • Wednesbury, West Midlands – Lloyds
  • Whitchurch, Shorpshire – Lloyds

It comes after research found that up to 80 constituencies have lost more than 80 percent of their banks in the last three years.

Nearly a million customers across the UK are at risk of having no major bank branch in their local area in a matter of months, the study showed.

The bank closures study, by AI and analytics leader SAS, compared the count of open bank branches in every local constituency in the UK in 2020 with the number that closed over the past three years.

Looking at seven of the largest banks in the UK, SAS found those in Ross, Skye and Lochaber in Scotland, Copeland, Central Devon and Gainsborough face a potential risk of having no in-person branches in the coming months if the current rate of closures continues.

The study found that 80 constituencies have lost more than 80 percent of their banks in the last three years, with an annual bank loss rate of more than 25 percent.

The average constituency across the UK saw 51 percent of its banks close in the last three years, with a branch loss rate of 17.3 percent.

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