Managing bank closures

More than one in eight UK bank branches that were open at the start of 2023 will have closed by December, the Financial Times newspaper has calculated, with almost three-fifths of the network vanishing since 2015. Changes like these affect employees as well as customers, but at the Lloyds Banking Group, the Accord union says no colleague will be placed at risk of redundancy and there will be “a job for every impacted colleague whether that’s in a branch or another part of the group”.

There are due to be 45 branch closures during 2024 in the LBG group (19 Lloyds, four Bank of Scotland and 22 Halifax), and the bank will decommission its fleet of mobile branches which service Lloyds and Bank of Scotland customers. The redeployment options available to individual members will be decided by a combination of job availability and geography, but Accord says no colleague will be out of pocket as the employer has committed to finance “any reasonable additional travel costs associated with moving to a different base branch” when the current branch closes.

“Reasonable travel” will now be defined as 20 miles or one hour of travel time one-way (this only applies to branch closures) and will be paid for an unlimited period while the employee remains in the “go to” branch.