Santander to slash opening hours in 36 UK stores | Personal Finance | Finance

March 25, 2025 4,984

Santander will slash the opening hours at 36 of its high street branches from June 30. Most affected branches will open three days a week, with many scaling down from a six-day timetable.

This follows Santander announcing it will close 95 branches, which will take its UK presence down to 349, and threaten around 750 jobs. Of the stores changing their hours, 21 will open on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, such as branches in Bicester, Braintree, Durham, and Stevenage. An additional 14 branches will adopt a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday timetable, opening from 9.30am to 3pm, such as Banbury, Great Yarmouth and Newark. Caerphilly will operate two days a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, down from Monday to Friday hours.

Currently many stores are open six days a week on weekdays from 9.30am to 3:00pm, and Saturday mornings from 9.30am to 12.30pm.

In the new model, the Spanish bank will have 290 full-service branches, 36 reduced-hours banks, 18 counter-free branches and five work cafes.

A spokesperson for Santander UK said: “As customer behaviour changes, we are ensuring that our branches remain fit for the future.

“Our new combination of full-service branches, alongside Work Cafés, counter-free branches and reduced hours branches, aims to provide the right balance between digital banking and face-to-face money management and guidance.

“As a business, we must move with customers and balance our investment across all the places where we interact with customers, to deliver the very best for them now and in the future.”

Santander advised that current and business account holders can bank using one of 11,000 Post Office branches.