irgin Money is to shut almost a third of its bank branches, with 255 workers facing potential redundancy.
The high street banking business said it will shut 39 local banks due to changing customer demand, which has seen fewer people go into banks in favour of online services.
The sites affected have seen the number of customer transactions fall by an average of 43% since the pandemic hit in March 2020.
As our customers continue to change the way they want to bank with us, by conducting fewer transactions in-store and adopting the convenience of digital banking, we must respond to that evolving demand
Sarah Wilkinson, chief operating officer at Virgin Money, said: “The decision to close a store is never taken lightly.
“But as our customers continue to change the way they want to bank with us, by conducting fewer transactions in-store and adopting the convenience of digital banking, we must respond to that evolving demand.
“For our colleagues, we will pursue all options to retain as many as possible within alternative roles, and have had great success previously with store colleagues moving to other customer operations roles, as their skills are highly transferable.”
It has been reported the following Virgin Money branches will be shut by the end of the year:
– Belfast
– Chelmsford
– Enfield
– Hexham
– London Haymarket
– St Albans
– Bournemouth
– Cheltenham
– Exeter
– Irvine
– Milton Keynes
– Swindon
– Brighton
-Chester
– Fort William
– Kendall
– Newton Stewart
– Turrif
– Bristol
– Croydon
– Golders Green
– Kensington, London
– Norwich
– Wolverhampton
– Bromley
– Derby
– Gosforth Centre
– Kingston
– Oxford
– Cambridge
– Durham
– Guildford
– Liverpool
– Reading
– Cardiff
– Ellon
– Harrow
– Lochgilphead
– Southampton