The high street banking giant has targeted 14 branches across England, Wales and Scotland in the latest cull to take place in June and July as it looks to adapt to customers’ move away from in-person banking towards digital banking.
This latest number comes on top of the 30 Barclays branches flagged in January with closures set for Spring.
This means since the start of 2023, Barclays has confirmed 44 branches in total will close this year.
In total in 2022, Barclays confirmed it would close 132 branches, with the majority of closures already having taken place.
Total bank branch closures
LINK data revealed more than 600 bank branch closures were announced during 2022, across brands including Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Nationwide Building Society, HSBC, Barclays, RBS and Danske Bank.
Meanwhile, there were 12,178 fewer free-to-use ATMs in operation last year compared with August 2018.
So far in 2023, 119 branches have already been confirmed for closure this year across Barclays, TSB, Lloyds and Halifax, NatWest, as well as two from Nationwide and one from Virgin Money.
Alternative banking methods
According to Barclays, it has the largest network of alternative branch sites – Barclays Local – in libraries, community and shopping centres with 200 of these in total.
Barclays added that it is expanding Barclays Local by over 70 sites in 2023, adding to the 200 opened in 2022. These provide a presence in places such as town halls and libraries, and offer in-person banking support.
Further, it will roll out 10 banking pods by summer 2023 – semi-permanent structures providing private space in locations such as shopping centres and retail parks.
A Barclays spokesperson said: “As visits to branches continue to fall, we need to adapt to provide the best service for all our customers. Where there is no longer enough demand to support a branch, we maintain an in-person presence though our Barclays Local network, live in over 200 locations, based in libraries, town halls, mobile vans and our new banking pods.
“We also support access to cash with our cashback without purchase service, 24-hour deposit-taking ATMs and by working alongside the Post Office and Cash Access UK.”
