www.bbc.co.uk
The decline of TG Jones was obvious to all from the first day of its existence.Who didn't expect this to happen? Once we heard about plans to close stores, it was a given they'd push ahead.
Up to 150 ex-WHSmith high street stores to close as rescue deal approved
The sweeping restructuring, approved by a court, will see steep rent cuts on most remaining stores.
They still haven't paid WHSmith the full value for the sale, either.
I doubt many of the premises the shops are in are owned by little old ladies reliant on the income to supplement their state pension. Our pension funds maybe…
Caught me off-guard this one, but it does sort of make sense, especially as banks continue to close bricks and mortar branches.
Unlikely unless there was a clause to that effect in the sale and purchase contract.
Actually TSB remained a separate brand and was then spun out again from Lloyds, bought by another group and now sold to Santander
I was careful with my wording!
Who didn't expect this to happen? Once we heard about plans to close stores, it was a given they'd push ahead.
Up to 150 ex-WHSmith high street stores to close as rescue deal approved
The sweeping restructuring, approved by a court, will see steep rent cuts on most remaining stores.
We are one of the affected towns, we have a Halifax at one end of the main shopping street and a Lloyds at the other end. We had already been told the Halifax branch will be closed around the end of Summer; to be fair the remains of the dying shopping centre (Boots, M&S & Timpsons remain) is closer to the Lloyds (although Natwest have already abandoned the site adjacent to Lloyds..).
I believe the only reason it took so long was because as part of the conditions of the sale they had to keep all stores open for a year.
Interestingly her in Llandudno the Lloyds branch is closing with the Halifax branch being rebranded
The high street brands will become just another banking option, with zero customer loyalty.
Considering how many empty Debenhams, BHS and other stores are still around, the landlords have to ask what’s better? 25% of something or 0% of nothing?
Personal banking is a small percentage of most banks activities. Few people visit or need to visit a high street branch. A few years ago I needed to visit my bank. I went to my nearest branch only to see it was closed and a sign in the window dated 6 months previous staying it was going to close. Fair enough I thought I had had no need to visit in years. 99.9% of all interactions do no require a visit to a branch.
I have a Lloyd’s credit card and a Bank of Scotland current account and when I open the app for one of them it flashes up the logos of both, plus that of, Halifax and says, “part of the same family”. I can also use one app for all the purposes of the other eg I can send money from my BoS account using my Lloyds app.
One reason the high street is so dead is because of the awful rents being charged. Oddly when conservative politicians are (rightly) criticising high rates, wages, regulations, energy they omit to mention landlords, which are often the biggest expense…funny that!
Agreed. Technology has done for bricks and mortar banks- a shame in a way as they occupied lots of units and employed many people, but irreversible.
I found it very useful to still have our town's branch when my parents died and I was dealing with the estate and probate, with all the forms etc. would have both hated and worried if vital documents had to be sent through the post.
My first account was one that my parents opened at the Bradford and Bingley, but the first one that I opened myself was a Halifax Little Xtra account. It wasn't even at a Halifax branch, but a "local agent" that operated from a solicitor's office in the village. There are still a few of those around, but they must also be dwindling in number. At that time my village had a branch of the Clydesdale Bank that was open 5 days a week; changed days.
I still think there's a need for physical locations, although banking hubs should fulfil this requirement. If they had any sense they'd merge these in with the Post Office.
That doesn't sound particularly far-fetched. I've been using Curve (a debit card service/app that allows you to link multiple cards into one physical card) and was advised that it was being acquired by Lloyds; you might find that Monzo is taken over by one of the established banking groups than the other way around.
I do this every year. I have a main bank account, then a bonus bank account. The bonus one has two charity direct debits coming out of it and every month a chunk of salary gets transferred into it then straight back out again (minus the funds for the DDs). Use the current account switching service and switching to another bank is super simple.
I’d quibble a bit with the 0.1% but agree in principle. However, if things are going that way then those hubs need to be open when people who work for a living can visit them - ie evenings (not necessarily all of them) and weekends -including cash handling. A fair (though admittedly small) amount of that online business will be for want of any viable alternative.
The solicitors would have been Agents of the Halifax, selling their mortgages and savings accounts and handling deposits, withdrawals and mortgage repayments. Agents were typically estate agents, accountants or, as in your case, solicitors. Monmouthshire, my local Building Society, still has a number of them.
