Honiton is to lose its HSBC bank next year as part of a nationwide programme of branch closures.

Philippa Davies www.midweekherald.co.uk

Around the UK, 114 branches will shut down between April and August. The Honiton branch will close on June 13 2023.

HSBC said the closures are in response to a steep decline in footfall at its branches since the Covid pandemic, with some serving fewer than 250 people a week. Meanwhile usage of its mobile app has almost tripled since 2017 and the vast majority of transactions are completed digitally.

The bank’s head office has said it hopes to redeploy all its employees at affected branches to other roles within HSBC, either to other branches or to a different position.

HSBC’s managing director of UK distribution Jackie Uhi said: “People are changing the way they bank and footfall in many branches is at an all-time low, with no signs of it returning.

“The decision to close a branch is never easy or taken lightly, especially if we are the last branch in an area, so we’ve invested heavily in our ‘post closure’ strategy, including providing free tablet devices to selected branch customers who do not already have a device to bank digitally, alongside one-to-one coaching to help them migrate to digital banking.”