Could this be your new bank branch?

Sitting just inland from the north Norfolk coast, the historic Georgian town of Holt is home to many art galleries, antique stores and bookshops. But one thing it lacks is a bank branch.

In December 2022, Barclays closed the doors of the last branch in town, leaving some 3,500 residents without access to face-to-face banking.

In response, they banded together and, backed by Steff Aquarone (now a local MP), ran a community campaign for a banking hub – a shared space where customers of all major banks can carry out regular cash transactions.

Their hard work paid off when the cash access and ATM network Link recommended the area for a new hub, which opened in February of this year at Holt Community Centre.

Read on to find out more about the UK’s collapsing branch numbers and whether community hubs are the solution.

Britain’s banking crisis

Which? has been tracking bank closures for more than a decade now, and by our count banks and building societies have closed a staggering 6,345 branches since January 2015 – 64% of the nation’s total branch network. 

A survey of Which? Members found that 40% had lost access to their local bank branch in the past five years.

The crisis hasn’t been limited to branches, either. Between July 2018 and December 2024, the UK lost a net 18,000 free-to-use cash machines and 3,500 pay-to-use, equivalent to a 32.7% cut in the network.

Banks often point to reduced branch visits and increased use of online and mobile banking when justifying closures. But the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that three million people in the UK continue to rely on physical cash.

Several communities have been left in virtual ‘cash deserts’. Three million people live in 31 parliamentary constituencies with no remaining bank branches. A further 68 constituencies, with combined populations of more than seven million, are down to their last branch.

Many are in rural areas, such as central Suffolk, but towns and cities have still been hit. Having lost 19 branches, the constituency of Leeds North West has just two remaining.

• Find out more: Bank branch closures: is your local bank closing?

The search for an alternative

Following a long-standing Which? campaign, legislation came into force in June 2023 to ensure people could have free access to cash. Banks must now weigh up whether local communities lack access to cash services and plug significant gaps.

While this enables the FCA to delay branch closures, it can’t keep branches open indefinitely. But it has intensified the search for alternatives.

Post Office branches offer basic banking services, including deposits and withdrawals, checking your balance and paying bills. The list of what you can’t do is substantially longer and includes transferring money from your account and seeking advice or making enquiries about other financial products.

NatWest and Barclays both employ ‘community bankers’ – professional bank staff who travel to areas with no branches and meet customers in shared local spaces, such as libraries.

Both banks also run a small fleet of ‘mobile banking vans’, which visit local communities. Again, services can be limited and are only available on certain dates. 

The seemingly more robust solution which is often touted is the community banking hub.

• Find out more: How Which? campaigned to protect cash, and won 

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What are banking hubs?

Community banking hubs provide counter services run by post office staff for deposits, withdrawals and paying bills. 

They also offer face-to-face banking with a representative of your bank for more complicated enquiries, such as managing your account. 

As different banks’ staff will be represented on different days, this reduces costs for banks compared with running a full-time service.

Following pressure from Which? and other campaigners, major high street banks agreed to fund shared banking hubs through the non-profit Cash Access UK (CAUK) on a voluntary basis in December 2021.

Banking at a hub

When we asked our members to share their experiences of using community hubs, we received a mixed response.

Katharine Morrison, 65, from Mauchline in East Ayrshire, Scotland, told us her town lost its branches six years ago, and her closest community hub is 11 miles away in Cumnock.

‘Although I can use it the way I used to use my local bank, the staff there don’t know me,’ says Katharine. ‘It takes 20 minutes to drive there, there’s no dedicated car park and my bank is only there one or two days a week. It’s best done if I’m going there for shopping.’ 

Distance and the difficulty getting to a hub on the right day at the right time was a consistent theme among the members who spoke to us. The services on offer also seemed to vary – one member said they were unable to pay in a cheque, while another told us their hub ran out of cash.

Despite this, Katharine maintained that they were still preferable to having no face-to-face banking services.

‘It’s much better having a banking hub with lots of different banks, even if it is a bit restricted,’ she said, adding that certain services and enquiries can be difficult to do online, particularly for older people.

Cat Farrow, customer and strategy director at Cash Access UK, told us hubs provide a ‘purpose-built private space where customers can talk to their own bank about more complicated matters’.

She added that hubs ‘are proving extremely popular, and our customer satisfaction scores are exceptional’.

Can hubs open fast enough?

The first hub opened in December 2022, and since then 149 have followed suit, with another 75 in the pipeline.

While the roll-out was initially quite slow, it has since sped up considerably. Cash Access UK told us that this year, 27 new hubs opened in March alone.

However, our research shows that only 12 of the 31 constituencies without a bank branch have a community hub open or planned.

Hub openings have certainly not kept up with bank closures, and more closures could be coming.

Branch closures vs banking hub rollout

_{*2025 data is for the year to date (1 April). 2025 data includes scheduled branch closures.}

How to get a banking hub where you live

If you’re concerned about access to cash in your area, you can make a community request with Link for a review:

1. Go to Link's website and fill out a cash access request form. Tell Link about what cash services you need and what’s available in your local area.
2. Link will then carry out an assessment where it will look at what services have been lost, how significant the changes have been, what services are still available and whether this meets the needs of the community. FCA rules stipulate 95% of people in towns and cities should be able to withdraw and deposit cash within one mile of where they live (three miles for rural residents).
3. Link may follow up with an on-site visit for a more in-depth analysis of the area.
4. If additional cash services are needed, Link will make a final recommendation for a suitable solution such as a cashpoint or a banking hub. It says a hub is more likely if the area has a population of at least 10,000 and at least 70 shops.
5. If a hub is recommended, the case will be passed to Cash Access UK, which will start planning for one in your area.