Scrape UK Bank Branch Closures 2020–2026 
                     Scrape UK Bank Branch Closures 2020–2026: Mapping the Rapid Transformation of 
Britain’s Physical Banking Network
Introduction
The UK banking landscape has undergone a dramatic physical transformation since 2020. The 
acceleration of online banking, mobile applications, cashless payments, changing customer 
behaviour, rising operating costs and branch rationalisation have pushed banks to reassess the role of 
high-street locations. The strategy to Scrape UK Bank Branch Closures 2020–2026 provides a useful 
framework for studying this transformation through structured location, closure-date, bank, postcode 
and geographic datasets.
A long-term dataset makes the scale particularly visible. Which? reports that 369 branches closed in 
2020, followed by 736 in 2021, 662 in 2022, 645 in 2023, 410 in 2024 and 433 in 2025. It currently 
lists 314 branches scheduled for closure in 2026.
This creates an especially valuable research opportunity because Bank networks ranked by branch 
shrinkage can reveal which institutions have reduced their physical footprint most aggressively, while 
UK financial services network intelligence can connect branch closures with population density, cash 
access, competitor presence and local economic activity.
The analysis is also relevant to businesses seeking to Extract UK bank branch closure data, monitor 
financial-service accessibility and identify locations where physical banking infrastructure is 
disappearing.
The Scale of UK Branch Network Reduction
The six completed years from 2020 through 2025 recorded 3,255 closures based on Which? tracking, 
while adding the 314 currently scheduled closures for 2026 takes the observed/scheduled total to 
3,569. The 2026 figure should be treated differently because it represents scheduled closures rather 
than a completed full-year count.
Bank branch Change vs Approx. monthly 
Year closures Status previous year closures Key observation
Pandemic 
disrupted 
2020 369 Completed - 30.8 previously 
announced closure 
programmes
Strong post-
2021 736 Completed +367 61.3 pandemic 
acceleration
Closure activity 
2022 662 Completed -74 55.2 remained 
exceptionally high
Population 
State / Territory Number of Served Store Type GroNwettwho rRk aretdeu ction Stores Dominant (20r2em3–a2in0ed2 5)
2023 645 Complete(dApprox.)-17 53.8 structurally 
elevated
New South Wales 88 7.8 million Urban & Drive- +11%
thru Noticeable 
2024 410 Completed -235 34.2 slowdown from 
Victoria 70 6.6 million Mall & CBD +9%2021–23
Outlets
Closure activity 
2025 433 Completed +23 36.1
Queensland 55 5.5 million Suburban Cafes +13in%creased again
Western Australia 34 2.8 million Standalone Stores +10C%urrent scheduled 
2026 314 Scheduled* -119 vs 2025 26.2* programme, not 
South Australia 22 1.9 million Mall Cafes +7%final annual total
Six-year 
T2a02s0m–2a0n2i5a 3,2585 Complete5d41,000 — Regiona45l .S2tores +6%cumulative 
reduction
Australian Capital 
Territory 9 462,000 CBD Cafes +5%Combined 
Completed + observed and 
N20o2r0t–h2e0r2n6 *Territory3,5659 247,000 — Airport 42.5*scheduled Outlets +4%announced 
programme
*2026 figures represent branches currently scheduled for closure and can change as banks announce, 
postpone or complete programmes. Source: Which? branch-closure tracking.
The most striking feature is the 2021 spike. Closure activity almost doubled from 2020 to 2021. 
Which? reported 736 closures in 2021, with 298 branches closing between June and August alone.
The pandemic therefore did not permanently reverse the structural shift. Instead, it temporarily 
delayed some closure programmes while simultaneously encouraging customers to become more 
comfortable with digital banking.
Bank-by-Bank Shrinkage Signals
A useful scraping project should not stop at counting closures. It should connect each closure to the 
institution responsible, the original branch network and the replacement service available nearby.
Which? identifies Barclays as the individual bank with the largest number of closures since its 2015 
tracking began, at 1,236, while NatWest Group and Lloyds Banking Group have each closed more than 
1,500 locations when their respective brands are combined.
The recent annual data demonstrates that leadership changes depending on the year.
2026 2026 share of 
2025–26 
Bank or brand 2024 closures 2025 closures scheduled 2024–26 total scheduled 
closures change closures
Lloyds 83 93 116 292 +23 36.9%
Halifax 76 101 88 265 -13 28.0%
Santander 0* 95 40 135 -55 12.7%
NatWest 68 105 33 206 -72 10.5%
Bank of 31 24 28 83 +4 8.9%
Scotland
TSB 28 8 0 36 -8 0.0%
Barclays 90 6 0 96 -6 0.0%
Co-operative 
Bank 0 0 3 3 +3 1.0%
RBS 20 0 0** 20 0 0.0%
Ulster Bank 10 0 0 10 0 0.0%
Danske 4 0 0 4 0 0.0%
HSBC 0 1 0 1 -1 0.0%
Listed total 410 433 314 1,151 -119 100%
*Which?'s 2024 breakdown did not list Santander separately in the cited dataset.
**Figures and brand treatment vary between sources and group-level reporting. The table follows the 
bank/brand breakdown published by Which? for the respective periods.
The 2026 programme is particularly concentrated. Lloyds and Halifax together account for 204 of the 
314 scheduled closures, or roughly 65% of the current total. This concentration is important for 
competitive mapping because the closure of several branches belonging to the same banking group 
can materially reshape local financial-service availability.
Why Are Banks Closing Physical Locations?
The underlying causes are both technological and economic.
First, customer behaviour has shifted dramatically. UK Finance data cited by Which? showed that 72% 
of adults used online banking and 54% used mobile banking in 2020.
Second, branch networks are expensive to maintain. Rent, staffing, security, utilities, technology and 
compliance create substantial fixed costs. When transaction volumes move online, the economics of 
operating a high-street site become harder to justify.
Third, branch consolidation allows banks to concentrate resources in fewer locations while investing in 
mobile apps, digital onboarding, contact centres and automated services.
The FCA has acknowledged that banks can transform their businesses in response to technology and 
customer behaviour, but expects firms to consider customers' everyday banking needs and available 
alternatives when closing or significantly reducing services.
From Branch Data to Geographic Intelligence
The real value of UK banking network reduction analysis lies in transforming closure announcements 
into a geographic intelligence layer.
A structured method to Extract bank branch location data in UK project could capture branch name, 
bank, address, postcode, latitude, longitude, opening hours, announced closure date, actual closure 
date, branch status and alternative nearby banking facilities.
That information can then be combined with demographic and geographic datasets to identify 
communities experiencing disproportionate reductions in physical financial services.
The FCA's access-to-cash research demonstrates why this matters. Its 2022 Q4 dataset recorded 4,565 
branches belonging to larger banks and building societies providing personal current accounts, plus 906 
branches from other banks and building societies.
A closure dataset can therefore become a much broader UK banking network model rather than simply 
a list of addresses.
Measuring the Broader Cash-Access Impact
Branch closures do not necessarily mean that every banking service disappears from a community. 
Customers may still have access to ATMs, Post Offices, mobile branches, banking hubs or cashback 
facilities.
The FCA recorded 38,726 free-to-use ATMs, 10,787 pay-to-use ATMs and 9,868 conventional Post 
Office locations in its 2022 Q4 coverage dataset.
This creates an important analytical distinction: bank branch reduction is not identical to total cash-
access reduction.
However, the disappearance of a branch can still affect customers who require face-to-face assistance, 
businesses depositing cash, elderly customers, digitally excluded groups and consumers dealing with 
complex financial issues.
The FCA reported in its 2022 Financial Lives research that 19% of adults with a day-to-day account said 
a branch they regularly used had closed during the previous 12 months.
A Data Pipeline for UK Branch Closure Intelligence
A robust data collection system can monitor bank websites, closure announcements, branch 
directories, regulatory information, mapping sources and financial-service datasets.
The pipeline can capture:
• Bank and brand
• Branch name
• Full address
• Postcode
• Latitude and longitude
• Announcement date
• Planned closure date
• Actual closure date
• Closure status
• Nearby branches
• Banking hub availability
• ATM availability
• Post Office alternatives
• Opening hours
• Community service alternatives
Digital shelf analytics may appear unrelated to banking at first glance, but the underlying principle is 
similar: continuously monitoring distributed locations, identifying changes and converting fragmented 
public information into structured competitive intelligence.
Likewise, Financial and alternative data scraping can help combine branch information with property, 
demographic, business-density, transport and consumer datasets.
For organisations building this capability at scale, Web Scraping API Services can provide automated 
collection pipelines that deliver standardised branch records for downstream analytics.
A managed infrastructure model is also useful when banks frequently modify closure pages, branch 
directories or location structures. Managed web scraping can support recurring collection, monitoring, 
validation and dataset maintenance rather than one-time extraction.
The Rise of Banking Hubs
The disappearance of branches has also increased interest in banking hubs. LINK states that it had 
recommended 282 banking hubs as of 18 August 2026.
This introduces another valuable field for a branch-closure dataset: replacement infrastructure.
Instead of recording only "branch closed," analysts can track whether the affected community 
subsequently receives a banking hub, whether another bank remains within a defined radius and 
whether cash services continue through alternative channels.
This makes the dataset considerably more useful for policymakers, financial institutions, property 
analysts and local businesses.
What the 2020–2026 Dataset Reveals
The numbers demonstrate that UK branch closures are not a short-term anomaly. The 2021 peak was 
followed by several years of sustained reductions, with more than 400 closures recorded in both 2024 
and 2025.
The geographic dimension is equally important. A national total can conceal significant local 
differences. One town may retain several branches from different institutions, while another may lose 
its final bank and become dependent on Post Office services, ATMs or a future banking hub.
The most powerful analysis therefore combines when, where, which bank and what alternative exists.
A branch closure dataset can ultimately support location-risk scoring, competitor mapping, high-street 
analysis, cash-access modelling, financial inclusion studies and commercial site selection.
Conclusion
The UK banking network of 2026 is fundamentally different from the network that existed at the 
beginning of the decade. From 2020 through 2025, Which? recorded 3,255 branch closures, while 
its current 2026 schedule adds another 314 planned closures.
The opportunity for data-driven research is therefore substantial. Scraping branch announcements, 
historical locations, closure dates and alternative services can transform scattered public 
information into a continuously updated financial-services network dataset.
For banks, fintech companies, policymakers, researchers and location-intelligence providers, the 
objective should not simply be to count closed branches. It should be to understand the changing 
geography of access, identify communities facing the greatest network reductions and measure 
whether replacement services adequately compensate for lost physical infrastructure.
In that sense, UK branch-closure data is becoming more than a banking statistic. It is a strategic 
indicator of how Britain's high streets, communities and financial-service ecosystem are being 
redesigned around a digital-first economy.
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