Millions of pissed off financial institution prospects had cause to cheer yesterday, after Nationwide Building Society promised to maintain its remaining excessive road branches open till 2026.

The trend-bucking pledge, which despatched shockwaves by the business, will delight those that depend on face-to-face banking and breathe some new life into ailing excessive streets.

It additionally marks a victory for the Daily Express Save Our High Street Banks marketing campaign, as branches disappear and outlets shut within the march in the direction of digital-only providers.

Nationwide, Britain’s largest constructing society, says in-person banking remained massively standard. Its dedication will embarrass big-name rivals that argue the alternative.

Nationwide CEO, Debbie Crosbie, mentioned: “Nationwide is different. We give customers a choice about how they do their banking and we support the British high street. Because our customers value face-to-face contact and we’re owned by them, we act in their interests.”

A survey of two,000 folks by the mutual confirmed two thirds of shoppers valued their native department.Main causes for visiting have been withdrawing money, checking balances, opening an account, getting monetary recommendation and discussing difficulties.

A 3rd needed face-to-face contact amid the best cost-of-living disaster in a era, however felt forged adrift by the swathe of closures.

Older folks’s champion and Tory peer Ros Altmann, 67, who backs this newspaper’s marketing campaign, mentioned the brutal department cull was the most recent “lamentable” instance of corporations “riding roughshod over the interests and needs of loyal, long-standing customers”.

She added: “Instead of prioritising profit, companies should consider customer needs as a whole by reappraising further branch closures.” More than 5,000 branches have vanished since 2015, sparking fears that conventional banking shall be a factor of the previous by 2027.

Just 5,154 excessive road banks are actually left within the UK, down from 9,807 in 2015. Baroness Altmann mentioned: “Of course fewer people visit their branch. But that does not mean firms should feel entitled to exclude older customers who cannot manage the lower-cost, higher-profit ways of working which best suit the banks. This could even amount to age discrimination.”

Between them, Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, NatWest, RBS, TSB, Virgin Money and Nationwide have introduced the closure of round 330 branches for the reason that begin of the yr, in keeping with money machine agency Link.