New retraction of sails for Banco Sabadell in the United Kingdom. The entity announced this Tuesday that TSB, its British subsidiary, will close 70 offices in 2022. This is the second snip in just over a year for the bank, which announced the closure of almost 165 branches in the country in September last year. Thus, its network in the United Kingdom will now be 220 offices, less than half that of then, but still the seventh largest in the country.
While the closings announced last year involved cutting 900 jobs, in this case the measure does not lead to layoffs. In a statement, the group explained that the 150 people affected by the decision will be relocated to other roles within TSB.
The bank has justified the cut by attributing it to the greater use of digital banking services by its customers. Sabadell has detailed that in recent years it has observed a “significant” decrease in the use of its branch network, with a progressive drop in the number of transactions carried out physically, a trend that has been detected since January 2019.
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According to the bank, more than 90% of the transactions are already carried out online, and 90% of the consultancies to contract a mortgage loan are managed through videoconferences. In the specific case of the offices that closed, TSB affirms that transactions are almost a third below average that its network maintains in the country.
But beyond that, the entity has framed the closure of these offices within its strategy proposed two years ago and which already included betting on digital services to meet the future needs of customers; a digital transformation, they explain, that the Covid-19 pandemic “has accelerated.” In fact, the entity also contemplates the transformation of 140 branches before the end of the year in order to offer a “better experience” to the bank’s clients and workers.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com