Is Santander taking over my town?

cat04

In Lincoln there are 2 facing onto the same public square, 100 yards if that from door to door. One was an Abbey and one an A&L but both are now Santander. The A&L one is quite small by the looks of it and the Abbey quite big, so why not just use the Abbey one?? Would have saved money on re-branding 2 branches plus overheads.

coolesticeking

It's going to be a sad day when my branch of RBS closes after all these years of it being such an iconic brand on the UK high street.

I will start to hiss when I see the devils work appearing even more... (Need to show it the cross!)

premierfella

I take the very valid point about the additional (likely) possibility that Santander might be holding off closures as they plan to open branches at new bigger premises to replace existing mulitple branches. This probably makes sense in towns where they now have two, perhaps even three, branches depending on the current branch locations and sizes.

It still appears to me that where you have four branches in a town centre, the business case for keeping all four open is stretched a little!

opinions4u

premierfella wrote: »

It still appears to me that where you have four branches in a town centre, the business case for keeping all four open is stretched a little!

Forcing customers to move from one branch to another, and then closing that down and moving them again within a relatively short period of time, means taking 2 opportunities to disturb the customer base when only 1 is really needed.

(The real reason will probably be that the masters in Madrid simply won't let them spend the money)

bethesda

cat04 wrote: »

The A&L one is quite small by the looks of it .

you can say that again.........i can spit from one end to the other!

there's a third branch near the railway crossing on the high street

chambta

In many cases the actual physical size of the branches will vary massively.

In my town, and in many others the order will be RBS/Abbey/A&L/B&B.

My understanding is that all customers will be able to use any other and in time will perhaps naturally gravitate to the larger.

Dr_Cuckoo3

chambta wrote: »

In many cases the actual physical size of the branches will vary massively.

In my town, and in many others the order will be RBS/Abbey/A&L/B&B.

My understanding is that all customers will be able to use any other and in time will perhaps naturally gravitate to the larger.

Your branch is a traditional old fashioned Bank branch though

These days old style branches are better suited to become wine bars

Most new branches have a modern format (apart from Punjab National Bank Ilford branch)

How many former building societies occupy traditional old fashioned Bank branch buildings ?

Dr_Cuckoo3

Bradford & Bingley branches have been refurbished and some of these do not have any cash machines - ridiculous :think:

scubaangel

A town local to me has three branches currently two largish ones opposite one another and a much smaller one 100ft or so down the road. I loathe having to go in to the bigger ones as the customer service is atrocious compared to the smaller one where the staff are without fail friendly and helpful not to mention that the bigger ones seem to employ staff to simply ignore customers (waited in one for almost 15 mins to do a counter transaction, two people at the counter one with a customer, only me in the queue, not even aknowledged by the staff who wasn't with a customer).