Santander has confirmed it is closing 44 of its UK branches, putting 291 jobs at risk.

The latest closures will take the Spanish bank’s UK branch network down to 305 locations, after it closed 95 branches last year.

Santander said it had seen a “rapid increase” in customers choosing to do their banking digitally, with 96% of the bank’s transactions now being completed in digital channels. Since 2019, Santander has seen a 64% rise in digital transactions, while financial transactions completed in branches reduced by 66% in the same period.

It also said that over the last year alone, there had been a 13% decrease in the volume of financial transactions taking place in branch.

Following the latest closures, Santander’s UK network will now consist of 244 full-service branches, 19 counter-free branches, 36 reduced-hour branches, and six work cafés.

Approximately 291 colleagues are at risk of redundancy, although Santander said there would be a number of redeployment opportunities that impacted colleagues can apply for.

A Santander UK spokesperson said: “In response to a continuing and sizeable shift towards customers using digital banking, we are making changes to our branches to better support our customers.

“We will continue to invest in both our branch network as well as our digital banking services, so we can be there to support our customers however they choose to bank with us.”

---