Santander has today announced plans to open a new Work Café, to consolidate three branches and to close two branches in out-of-town shopping centres.
In Milton Keynes the existing Midsummer Place and Grafton Gate branches will join together in June 2023 and move to a new Work Café branch at Santander’s new Head Office building, Unity Place approximately a mile away from Midsummer Place and across the road from Grafton Gate and the railway station. As well as banking facilities, the Work Café will provide local people with free co-working desks and bookable meeting rooms, fibre-optic WiFi, free customer car parking and a café selling sustainably sourced coffee.
In Derby, existing branches in St Peter’s Street and Market Place will be consolidated into the Market Place branch from 31 March 2023. Both branches are situated in the city centre and less than a mile apart. The nearest Post Office to St Peter’s Street is a short walk away (0.3 miles) and there are over 50 free to use ATMs within half a mile.
The two closing sites, in Bluewater and Sheffield Meadowhall have seen customer numbers decline rapidly in the last few years, with counter transactions dropping by over 55% between 2019 and 2021. Both branches are less than five miles from an alternative Santander branch, less than a mile from the nearest Post Office and have at least nine free to use ATMs within half a mile. Over 75% of customers using these branches also have an alternative Santander UK branch nearer to their home address. These branches will close on 30th March 2023.
Richard Owen, Head of Branches, said:“We remain committed to our branch network, but as branch usage by customers continues to fall, we have made the decision to consolidate our presence in a couple of areas where we have branches close together and to close a couple of branches in out-of-town locations where we know our customers are likely to have other alternatives close to home.
“We will provide every support to customers of closing branches to find other ways to bank with us that best suit their individual needs.”
The Milton Keynes Work Café will be the second in the UK, and follows the success of the Leeds Work Café, providing a new banking experience and acting as a vibrant hub for local businesses and the local community.
Richard Owen added: "Work Cafés have already been successful with our customers in Leeds and other countries around the world, so we're really looking forward to seeing the response in Milton Keynes, which is already a flourishing environment for local business collaboration."
Following these changes, Santander will have a network of 444 branches providing broad coverage across the whole of the UK. All Santander current and business account holders can also bank using one of over 11,000 Post Office branches nationwide.
To support customers who continue to use cash, Santander has taken an active approach with representation on several industry working groups and is part of the Cash Action Group banking hubs initiative.
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Editors Notes
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. At 30 June 2022, the bank had around 18,000 employees and serves around 14 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the FCA and the PRA in the UK. Santander UK plc customers’ eligible deposits are protected by the FSCS in the UK.
Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in the Europe, North America and South America regions, and is one of the largest banks in the world by market capitalization. Santander aims to be the best open financial services platform providing services to individuals, SMEs, corporates, financial institutions and governments. The bank’s purpose is to help people and businesses prosper in a simple, personal and fair way. Santander is building a more responsible bank and has made a number of commitments to support this objective, including raising €220 billion in green financing between 2019 and 2030, as well as financially empowering more than 10 million people by 2025. At the end of the third quarter of 2022, Banco Santander had €1.2 trillion in total funds, 159 million customers, of which 27 million are loyal and 50 million are digital, 9,100 branches and 203,000 employees.