Communities reliant on their local bank branches will suffer a major blow next year as over 100 are set to close their doors.
Hubs from Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland and TSB will disappear from high streets next year leaving customers with no tangible point of contact.
A whopping 6,000 bank and building society branches have closed since 2015, a rate of 54 per month. Belfast, Leeds, Southampton and Warwick are among the areas seeing doors closed indefinitely.
Banks are closing sites to help with cost cutting, coupled with the push for online banking. However, nearly 40% of people over the age of 65 do not use the digital service which leaves them at high risk of financial exclusion amid the closures.