Hellenic Business

HSBC has closed 45 local branches this year with another 23 due for the chop soon. But one town and its MP are fighting back -

It may be "the world's local bank", but HSBC is abandoning communities across Britain at an alarming rate, say campaigners. Guardian Money can reveal that it is closing more than one branch a week.

Campaigners this week named the banking giant as the worst of the "big four" banks when it comes to branch closures over the past decade, with 50 shut last year alone. Yet this trend seems to be accelerating, with 45 branches axed so far this year and a further 23 due for the chop between the end of this month and mid-December.

In many cases the branch it is shutting is the last remaining one in that town, leaving residents and small businesses forced to travel several miles to get to their nearest bank.

One such community is Shildon in County Durham, a town with a population of around 10,000 known as "the cradle of the railways" because of the part it played in the birth of the industry. Shildon lost its Barclays last year and is due to lose its last bank, an HSBC, on 12 October. But residents have decided they are not going to let their bank go without a struggle.

A petition has been started and a demonstration outside the branch is planned for 26 September. The local Labour MP, Helen Goodman, has tabled an early day motion calling on HSBC to urgently review the decision. Last week in the House of Commons she highlighted the "disgraceful" proposal and called for a debate on how banks treat ordinary people.

Perhaps more symbolically, Goodman is putting her money where her mouth is, and is ditching the account she has held with the bank for 24 years. "I'm moving to The Co-operative Bank," she told Money. It is, she says, "a small personal sign of protest, but I will be taking it further. Banks can't be allowed to simply abandon loyal customers and whole communities."

If and when the branch goes, many residents will face a three-mile journey to their nearest branch in Bishop Auckland, which costs £2.10 each way on the bus.

One of those who helped to kick off the "save our bank" campaign was Roy Merryweather, 32, who lives in Blackburn but is originally from Shildon and has family there. He has set up a Facebook page. Merryweather says Shildon is "a typical north-eastern town," and that sometimes there is a sense "we are downtrodden and we are beaten … we just submit. I thought, no, on this one I don't think we should. The high street is quite busy and has lots of independent local shops, but it needs a bank, otherwise it's just in danger of dying, really." He is also an HSBC customer "but I won't be if it goes".

Derek French, who runs the Campaign for Community Banking Services (CCBS) pressure group, says HSBC is a "prolific closer of branches". He estimates it has shut 386 over the past decade, compared with 150 and 161 for NatWest and Barclays respectively.

French says HSBC is also the only one of the big four that has refused to give any sort of pledge regarding "last bank in town" protection, though it did this week announce that personal customers will be able to access their accounts at Post Office counters from spring 2013 (see page 2).

According to the CCBS, around 1,200 communities have lost all their banks, and hundreds more will do so in the next five years. As a partial solution, it has long campaigned for neutral "shared branches", with a counter service covering all banks.

Goodman says HSBC's decision is especially deplorable bearing in mind that it made a pre-tax profit of £13.7bn last year and paid its chief executive almost £8m. She adds that the bank talks about how people can use telephone banking, but her own experience of HSBC's phone banking was that it was "shambolic".

It is of course true that many people don't visit their branch very often – or ever. French accepts that, but says: "There are still a lot of people who are branch-dependent." They include many elderly and disabled people. However, it is small businesses, such as shops, that often visit every day to bank takings, that particularly suffer when their branch closes.

In a statement, HSBC told Money that its network was very important, but "we do need to ensure our branches are in the right locations for our customers". It added: "On occasions this means we need to close some where customer footfall has fallen dramatically. Our Shildon branch is a case in point. It is currently only open for very limited hours during the week and not at weekends. Customer usage has fallen very significantly over the past few years."

A spokeswoman said the decision "was not taken lightly" and it was working with the "small number" of customers who use the branch to help reorganise their finances. "Customers will be able to use our Bishop Auckland and Darlington branches."

She added that when a branch was the last one in town, "we will leave an ATM wherever possible – sometimes this is down to planning permission – so customers are not left without access to fee-free cash".

The 23 branches closing are: Darwen; Hove; Corwen; Halesworth; London: St Paul's, Leadenhall and Barnes; Shildon; Edenbridge; Caerleon; Liverpool Hunts Cross; Swaffham; Kibworth; Helmsley; Chipping Campden; Appleby; Polegate; St David's; Leamington Spa; Falsgrave; Plymouth Mutley Plain; Llandovery; Weymouth Wyke Regis.

The Guardian