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Want a bank with lots of branches? This is the definitive list

By Olivia Rudgard

20 FEBRUARY 2017 • 7:06AM

Lloyds Banking Group branches are on average just 0.6 miles apart CREDIT: BLOOMBERG /CHRIS RATCLIFF

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H igh-street banks have closed more than 500 branches in the past year. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/current-

accounts/clydesdale-yorkshire-bank-close-79-branches-taking-total-closures/)

There are still more than 10,000 left - but they're not evenly spread between different companies. 

Some banks have kept more branches than others - and they are highly concentrated in some areas. 

The individual bank with the most branches is Barclays. But the full picture is more complex than that. 

Research from financial services firm UBS found that banks have 10,245 branches still open. 

Between them Lloyds Banking Group, which includes Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, which

includes RBS, NatWest and Ulster Bank, have 4,181 of these. 

These branches are often very close to each other. Among Lloyds Banking Groups' branches, the average distance from one to another

in the same group  is 0.6 miles. RBS group branches have on average 1.6 miles between them.

So if you want it to be more likely that there will be a branch in an area, these groups are the ones to go for. 

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Halifax and Bank of Scotland customers can use the other bank's branches for basic banking, such as depositing and withdrawing

money. Lloyds customers can do this in Bank of Scotland's branches. 

RBS has a different system - customers of each individual bank cannot use branches of the other banks at all, apart from using

cashpoints to withdraw cash. 

Proximity of branches will become even more important if threats to cashpoint network LINK result in its collapse

(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking/current-accounts/banks-crisis-talks-half-free-atms-threat/) in availability of shared cashpoints.  

A row over the amount that banks pay cashpoint providers when their customers use the machines has put its future in doubt. 

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If this happens customers may only be able to use cashpoints provided by their own banking group for free - though this is still a

relatively remote possibility. 

This number rises to 10.6 miles for Virgin Money customers. The bank has only 74 branches in the UK, which it refers to as "stores". 

Each of Lloyds Bank, Barclays and NatWest has more than 1,000 branches. HSBC is the only bank "brand" outside of these two groups

to have more than 1,000. It currently has 1,073 branches open. 

Customers can also use Post Office counters for some transactions, such as paying in and withdrawing money, though they can't be

used for more complex things like taking out a mortgage with an individual bank. 

The report suggested that the pace of branch closure would not let up, with branch numbers set to halve over the next ten years.

It said that one in four branches of the same individual bank "brand" had another branch within a five minute drive. 

 The closures are down to reduced customer appetite for branch visits,

(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/10952121/Brits-embrace-digital-banking.html) the report said. Footfall is down by 8 to

10pc every year and the average customer visits only one or twice each month. 

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