UK banks commit to 350 banking hubs over next five years

United Kingdom banks have committed to set up 350 banking hubs over the next five years, to provide face-to-face high street services following the closure of local branches¹. The commitment is set out in a Northern Ireland Assembly research briefing paper published on 4 October 2024¹.

Banking hubs are shared premises where several banks and building societies provide counter services. In Northern Ireland, hubs are planned in Kilkeel, Newcastle, Comber, Warrenpoint and Portrush, though at the time of writing only the Kilkeel and Portrush hubs were operational¹.

The commitment sits alongside new regulation of cash access. The Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 29 June 2023 and gives the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England powers to regulate retail cash access and wholesale cash distribution respectively¹. The new FCA rules under the Act came into force on 18 September 2024¹. In August 2023 the Treasury published its Cash Access Policy Statement¹.

The paper sets out the scale of branch and cash access change in Northern Ireland. Analysis by the Consumer Council for Northern Ireland, published in 2023, found that 166 electoral wards have two or more banking services within their boundaries, 187 have just one and 109 have no banking service at all¹. The same analysis of bank closures from 2020 to early 2023 noted that 21% of consumers have seen their local bank close within the last three years¹.

Northern Ireland has 16,000 cash access points of all types, below Scotland (50,000) and Wales (27,000)¹. Two thirds of rural dwellers in the Antrim and Newtownabbey District Council area live more than one mile from free access to cash, and in all district council areas except Belfast City and Ards & North Down roughly half of rural residents are more than a mile from free cash access¹.

Why it matters for households

The commitment covers the five years from 2024, so the hubs are expected to open gradually rather than at once¹. For households in areas that have lost their last branch, a hub is a shared counter rather than a replacement branch of a named bank, and the paper notes that in Northern Ireland only two of the five planned hubs were operational at the time of writing¹.

Cash use has fallen sharply: the Bank of England reported in December 2021 that transactional cash use dropped from over 50% of payments in 2010 to 17% in 2020¹. But reliance on cash is uneven. FCA research cited in the paper found that living in Northern Ireland makes an individual over twice as likely to rely on cash than a similar individual in England, and that not being in employment, being permanently sick or disabled, or being retired makes an individual 83% more likely to rely on cash than average¹. The paper also notes that digital banking security features such as card readers and passwords can be difficult for older and disabled people¹.

The paper states that credit unions, mutual and community banks all have the potential to maintain access to cash services across Northern Ireland¹. It does not report a full UK-wide list of hub locations or opening dates.

What happens next

The FCA rules under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 took effect on 18 September 2024¹. The paper does not set out a timetable for individual hub openings beyond the five-year commitment, and no further dates for the Northern Ireland hubs have been reported¹.

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