HSBC pledges to work with Inverness customers to minimise the impact of Highland capital branch closure
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The closure of HSBC's Inverness branch will not result in any job losses, the bank has said, with all staff offered redeployment elsewhere.
It has also pledged to offer support to the "very low number of customers", who use the bank regularly to enable them to continue using the bank's services after the branch shuts on September 27 this year.
The Inverness branch is one of 69 across the UK which HSBC has announced will close, citing the ongoing move to remote banking which has been accelerated over the past two years by the Covid-19 pandemic. This has resulted in less than half its customers using the HSBC branch network.
A spokesman for HSBC said: "We have a very low number of customers using the Inverness branch and we will work with them up to the closure to ensure they are able to continue their banking.
"This could be via a tablet device supplied by the bank, using a Post Office or mobile and telephone banking. We also have our Community Pop Up branch which we could deploy in Inverness should customers continue to need our support."
Before the decision was taken to close the Inverness High Street branch, HSBC carried out an impact assessment, as it did with all other threatened branches.
Although the nearest full service HSBC branch is 111 miles away in Aberdeen, HSBC has an agreement with the Post Office which allows its personal and business customers to use any Post Office counter to pay in cash or cheques, withdraw money and check their balances.
The HSBC spokesman added: "The nearest Post Office where customers can do their day-to-day banking is 0.2 miles away. There are also over 10 free-to-use ATMs within one mile of the branch.
"Just to reiterate, this is not the last bank in town.
"We have not put any roles at risk as a result of this announcement. We aim to redeploy all colleagues to other roles within the bank."
The impact assessment found that almost all of the Inverness branch customers – 97 per cent – were registered for telephone banking and just over half (52 per cent) are active users. It also found that 79 per cent of customers were registered for HSBC's internet and mobile banking channels.
Just 20 per cent of customers use branch banking alone. These include a number who are classed as vulnerable customers and will be offered additional support.
