Lloyds Banking Group has fixed closure dates for 245 major-bank branches by the end of 2026, including eight in Greater Manchester, as the lender pushes ahead with a plan that will leave some towns without a local branch at all. Three of those Greater Manchester closures landed in June, adding to the sharpest month yet in a wave that has already swept through much of the country.
The timing matters because June 2026 is now set to be the hardest-hit month so far, with 82 branches due to shut before the month is out. By the start of June, 138 banks had already closed across the UK, and customers in Greater Manchester were seeing the changes up close: Halifax on Wilmslow Road in Didsbury was due to close on June 10, the Lloyds branch in Stamford New Road, Altrincham, was expected to shut on June 9, and the Halifax in Ashton-under-Lyne closed at the beginning of the month.
Richard Lloyd, who launched the Government's review into access to banking in May, is now examining what those closures mean for the future of branch access. The review comes as LINK has recommended 277 bank hubs to replace some of the banking lost from local high streets, part of a wider attempt to soften the impact as customers continue to move to mobile services instead of in-person banking.
That shift is the reason banks keep giving for the closures, and the numbers show how quickly it is happening. Lloyds customers have been the hardest hit, with 82 Lloyds branches already shut or scheduled to close in 2026, alongside 43 Halifax branches and 28 Bank of Scotland branches. Lloyds Banking Group has said it will close 166 branches in 2026 and 2027 across Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Bank, while Santander is closing 54 branches this year and NatWest 35.
The local map is uneven. Of the eight Greater Manchester branches due to go, four are in Manchester, two in Trafford, and one each in Rochdale and Tameside. Across the UK, 31 branches are due to close in Scotland, 16 in Wales and four in Northern Ireland, with the rest spread through England. Since February 2022, 2,167 branches have either shut or been announced for closure, an average of nearly 10 a week, and the unanswered question now is which places will be next in line for a banking hub, if any, once the latest review finishes drawing its conclusions.
