Lloyds Bank to close Tadley branch this year

Tadley will lose another bank this year.

Lloyds has announced that it will be closing its branch in Aldermaston Road on October 26.

The closure follows Barclays saying that it will be shutting its branch in Aldermaston Road from July 30.

Lloyds said it had made "the difficult decision" to close the the branch because customers were using it less often, and the majority of customers were using alternative ways to bank.

Lloyds assessed banking trends in the four years prior to Covid-19 as well as the year to March 2021, which showed that 253 customers used the branch on a regular monthly basis.

It said that 55 per cent of personal customers using Tadley had also used other Lloyds Bank branches, 81 per cent had also used other Lloyds Bank branches, internet banking or PhoneBank, and 29 per cent had also used the Post Office.

The amount of personal branch transactions dropped by 27 per cent from March 2016 to March 2020, with a 35 per cent drop between March 2020 to March 2021.

Business transactions fell by nine per cent between 2016 and 2020, and dropped 54 per cent between 2020 and 2021.

Personal cashpoint transactions also decreased, experiencing a 24 per cent drop between 2016 and 2020 and a 22 per cent decrease in 2020 to 2021.

Business cashpoint transactions increased by 31 per cent from 2016 to 2020, but dropped 20 per cent in the last year.

The nearest Lloyds branches will be in Thatcham's Kingsland Centre, or Basingstoke's Festival Place.

The closest Barclays branches are in Market Place, Basingstoke, or in Newbury's Parkway Shopping centre.

Customers can also use their local Post Office for banking transactions.

Lloyds Banking Group retail director Vim Maru, said: “We’ve seen our digital banking customers grow by over four million in five years, to almost 18 million, of which 13.6 million also choose to be active app users.

“This means that, like many businesses on the high street, we must change for a future where branches will be used in a different way, and visited less often."