Royal Bank of Scotland to Close Another 54 Branches, Axe 258 Jobs

UK’s Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) said on Wednesday (05) that it will shut 54 more branches and axe 258 jobs. This is what it called the final cut to its branches network until at least 2020.

The branches are expected to shut in January, next year and the cuts will affect the branches in England and Wales only.

Excluding Wednesday’s (05) shutdown numbers, RBS has already declared the closure of 421 branches and the dismissal of 2,372 roles in the past 12 months, attracting the severe criticism from the experts.

“The review was undertaken as a consequence of the RBS network being reintegrated back into the core RBS bank now that the divestment of the business is no longer taking place,” the bank said on its latest move.

The latest move is also related to RBS’s unsuccessful attempt to spin-out its Williams & Glyn brand into a stand-alone bank, the RBS noted. “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,” an RBS spokesperson said.

“The way customers bank with us has changed radically over the last few years. Since 2014, branch transactions across Royal Bank of Scotland in England & Wales are down 30%. During this same period, there has been a 53% increase in the number of customers using mobile banking and mobile transactions have increased by 74%. We now provide our customers with more ways to bank with us than ever before – customers can choose from a range of digital, face-to-face and local options to suit their needs,” the bank said.

In recent years, banks in the UK have shut their hundreds of branches and axed hundreds of jobs with an aim to streamline their functions and adapt to banking customers’ rising preference for a digital transaction.