Santander announced a flurry of branch closures on Wednesday, which will place up to 750 employees at risk of redundancy.
The bank, which is one of the UK’s most prominent mortgage lenders, will close 95 of its 444 branches as part of a structural overhaul that will begin in June 2025.
Its updated branches network will include 290 full-serve branches, 36 branches with reduced hours, 18 counter-free branches and five work cafes.
The bank said locations affected by closures would be covered by Santander Community Bankers, who will visit communities on a weekly basis and attend local banking hubs to provide support.
This latest news of closures follows Lloyds Banking Group’s announcement in January that it would shut more than 100 Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland branches.
The FTSE 100 giant said it would close 61 Lloyds, 61 Halifax and 14 Bank of Scotland Branches as UK lenders shift to a digital focus.
Santander, meanwhile, said it had seen “rapid movement” of customers choosing to bank digitally, with digital transactions up 63 per cent since 2019.
In-branch financial transactions had reduced by 61 per cent in the same period.
The bank also recorded an 82 per cent increase in current accounts opened digitally.
A spokesperson for Santander said: “As a business, we must move with customers and balance our investment across all the places where we interact with customers, to deliver the very best for them now and in the future.
“Closing a branch is always a very difficult decision and we spend a great deal of time assessing where and when we do this and how to minimise the impact it may have on our customers.”
In February, the Spanish banking group, which has operations in Spain, the UK, Mexico and Brazil, reported a profit of €12.5bn (£10.4bn) for 2024, up 14 per cent and revenue growth of eight per cent to €62.2bn.
On the back of these results it said would seek to return €10bn of additional capital to shareholders through share buybacks over the next two years, in addition to its regular dividends.