Former banks question.

Both of our banks closed and one of them is being turned into apartments while the bigger ex-Clydesdale bank is now yet another cafe (we already had two in the village). I should imagine the smaller one being turned into apartments is a bit of a challenge as it really is small and the vault door is massive.
 
cheesefest said:
Where I live, three banks have closed in last 5 years, two of them pre pandemic. None of the units have been filled. It’s the same with other banks in a few miles from me.

Do you have any former banks that have closed in past 5 years and turned into something else?

Im thinking that the reason why they aren’t being transformed into something else is because of the strong rooms and other things that need to be removed are more costly than converting a former shop. Some former shops closed in that time have been converted into new ones.
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There's a pretty strong likelihood that in-store branches will go the same way as cheques over time. The prevalence of digital banking has only been heightened by Covid but was having a huge impact on profitability and usefulness of high street locations anyway.

Side note: unless things have changed recently, the main banks will not own the sites you're referring to, and will have landlord deals in place to maintain high street presence, i.e. commercial lease arrangements. When that's no longer needed (see above), the leases are either terminated or passed on to brokers to on-sell.
 
[FnG]magnolia said:
There's a pretty strong likelihood that in-store branches will go the same way as cheques over time. The prevalence of digital banking has only been heightened by Covid but was having a huge impact on profitability and usefulness of high street locations anyway.

Side note: unless things have changed recently, the main banks will not own the sites you're referring to, and will have landlord deals in place to maintain high street presence, i.e. commercial lease arrangements. When that's no longer needed (see above), the leases are either terminated or passed on to brokers to on-sell.
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Banks only opened 4 hours a day, 4 days a week. Then over social distancing. My bank only let in ONE customer in at a time when it could have four. As people only tolerated so much queuing, they got fed up with the bank queuing. Then banks said “due to declining numbers of some branches will have to close”. Yes they have caused it in the first place! Never understood why banks only allowed one customer. When they could open alternative cashier booths and put up screens between ATMs.
 
What do people do in banks?

Other than when I was poor and I had to withdraw denominations of cash less than a note, I have never once had to go into one? :confused:
 
Loads of places not just banks have closed around where I live and not been filled. Most of the out of town shopping centres have around 1/3rd of the units which have been sitting there vacant for months now and the high streets are a shadow of their former selves. The sad thing is the short sighted approaches by the people managing them are just making the problem worse, sometimes that might be intentional so as to push through a sale, etc. but mostly it just seems bad management.
 
dLockers said:
What do people do in banks?

Other than when I was poor and I had to withdraw denominations of cash less than a note, I have never once had to go into one? :confused:
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Not very much these days which was the point of my response. Digital banking/customer not present accounts for a huge percentage of the 'stuff' that customers need. The OP's having a whinge about conflated, yet accurate, points which are a rapid and predictable upswell in non-store requirements plus a pandemic which hammers that nail a bit harder.

That branch numbers are reducing shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
 
[FnG]magnolia said:
Not very much these days which was the point of my response. Digital banking/customer not present accounts for a huge percentage of the 'stuff' that customers need. The OP's having a whinge about conflated, yet accurate, points which are a rapid and predictable upswell in non-store requirements plus a pandemic which hammers that nail a bit harder.

That branch numbers are reducing shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
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Most customers who use a bricks n mortar bank are elderly, don’t use and/or can’t afford technology. Think when I walked/drove past bank queues 1 in 15-20 was under 50.
 
I think it may just be your area.

The old HSBC in Clifton is now a branch of The Ivy, one local to me was a bakery and is now a homeware shop. They're the only ones I can remember being banks before.

There was a George Clark's Renovations programme that saw a couple turn one in Cornwall into a home. They melted the old vault door down into a bath tub...
 
cheesefest said:
Most customers who use a bricks n mortar bank are elderly, don’t use and/or can’t afford technology. Think when I walked/drove past bank queues 1 in 15-20 was under 50.
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No, no|no and uh okay, I guess, in that order of your points.

I appreciate the anecdote but your metrics are off by a long shot. The APAC region I work in tends to be behind what Europe is doing in trending terms of customer usage, requirement, future need state etc - because we bank in different ways and use financial services in slightly differnt ways - but very much in front of new technology and card scheme roll-outs of POCs and trials etc. (which is actually perverse when you think about it). The challenge banks face is to be relevant and useful when bricks and mortar stores are not only not on your high street anymore but not NEEDED anymore. It's serve and return to badly employ a tennis analogy.

Short version: most customers are telling most FI's that they need digital ways of banking as a preference not an option.
 
There was 4 banks in my town and all have shut down. Only one, Barclays, as changed to a Tapaz bar. The other buildings are sat empty boarded up.
 
cheesefest said:
Im thinking that the reason why they aren’t being transformed into something else is because of the strong rooms and other things that need to be removed are more costly than converting a former shop.
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Some of the old ones are quite nice, there is at least one bar in the city where the former safe door has been kept and used as a decorative feature near the loos.

Even the old Bank of England is a pub these days. One place I worked at had an office in some business park for tech/science companies that used to be home to a chemical company, they had some bank vault type doors in some places because some labs/storerooms had dangerous contents etc.. or had to be strictly controlled - out company kept them in place, again big old metal security doors etc.. was just a cool feature to have for a tech company's offices.

I wonder if some crypto startup that doens't want to host stuff in a third-party data centre (for whatever reason) might look to occupy a former bank? I'm sure there must be some companies for whom a vault would be useful + obviously installing a new one in a new building can be expensive so an existing building that otherwise presents a problem to other people could be quite cool.
 
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