Bank announces closure of Wilmslow branch

Screenshot 2025-01-24 at 12.43.57

NatWest have announced that they will be closing 53 branches, including the Wilmslow one, due to a decline in customers using the branch.

The Wilmslow branch will close on 20th May 2025 - where the average counter transactions reduced by 62% between October 2019 and October 2024.

A NatWest spokesperson said: "Our customers are using digital banking more than ever before – over 80% of our active current account holders now use our digital services and over 97% of retail accounts with us are now opened online.

"Like any business, we strive to meet our customers' changing needs and expectations and we've been responding to the industry wide shift towards digital services by investing to broaden what customers can do themselves and to offer them greater personalisation.

"We are also significantly investing in refreshing our network – we expect to invest in excess of £20m in our network across the UK in 2025 to improve customer service, enhance the look and feel of our branches, and reduce the environmental impact of our buildings, as well as continuing to invest in shared solutions like the Post Office and Banking Hubs."

"Digital banking continues to provide new and inclusive ways of allowing the overwhelming majority of our individual and business customers, including the elderly and vulnerable, to bank with us in ways that they weren't able to before. But we know that a small number of people are not yet comfortable with it, which is why we are proactively reaching out to support them with this transition, having made over 200,000 calls last year. We also have experts that they can speak to for support and guidance."

This latest announcement follow the closure of the Alderley Edge branch in July 2017.

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Comments

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.

Richard Slater
Friday 24th January 2025 at 2:27 pm
Like Barclays in Macclesfield, totally economic with the truth.
Chris Chadwick
Friday 24th January 2025 at 4:13 pm
So how should Bank Square be renamed?
David Pearce
Friday 24th January 2025 at 4:47 pm
And then, finally, there will remain one proper national bank branch left = Santander. One can only hope that a certain migration of soon to be neglected over the counter customers from Nat West to this branch will help to reinforce its continued existence. I feel however in the end & sadly it's a case of don't hold your breath hoping for this positive scenario
Jonathan Follows
Saturday 25th January 2025 at 12:21 pm
I’m a NatWest customer but I’ve probably been there once in the last ten years.
The time I tried to pay in a US dollar “check” was initially refused until I insisted on getting someone competent involved.
I opened and closed a business account without needing to go there.
I can deposit UK cheques online, albeit twice perhaps in the last ten years.
The world has moved on. I miss the idea of personal contact but I don’t want to pay for it either.
Pete Taylor
Sunday 26th January 2025 at 11:45 am
You can access NatWest personal and business banking services at thousands of Post Office branches.
Peter Connors
Wednesday 29th January 2025 at 2:21 pm
This is bad news. Don't they realise that people often have to use online banking because they have reduced the services available in the branch? On occasion I have been to ask a question only to be told I need to do it online or by telephone. Frustratingly I have found myself waiting for my call to be answered for longer than it would take to walk to the branch in Wilmslow. Artificial intelligence is not yet at a level of sophistication that it can understand customers' queries unless they are straightforward. It always asks me to rephrase a query in simple language which is annoying when it is one that nuanced and not capable of expression in a simple sentence. My last interaction with a member of staff in the Wilmslow branch was very successful. I had a problem with my card reader which I needed to use to make an unusually large payment. The person I spoke to solved the problem immediately by giving me a new device.
Sandy Martin
Wednesday 29th January 2025 at 3:34 pm
Absolutely shocking news …
Julie Green
Wednesday 29th January 2025 at 7:40 pm
I wonder how long it will be before someone representing the digitally excluded brings a legal action against the banks, council car parks insisting on cashless payments and the other ways in which many elderly, disabled and poor are being disenfranchised from society in the name of progress.....
Simon Worthington
Thursday 30th January 2025 at 6:09 am
Santander may delist from the LSE and wind down UK operations in the near future.
As the NW branch was on very restricted hours for two of the five years mentioned and has reduced counter service leading to customers abandoning the queue and leaving no wonder counter transactions dropped.
Why is there not a multi bank service operating in large supermarkets??
Jonathan Cundall
Thursday 30th January 2025 at 4:52 pm
Halifax is also due to close in May
Laurie Atterbury
Thursday 30th January 2025 at 9:38 pm
Chris Chadwick- Online Square perhaps?

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