Freshwater residents have expressed their concern at news that HSBC is to close its branch in Freshwater later this year.
Particular concern has been expressed for elderly residents and local businesses who rely on having a local branch they can operate their accounts from.
“Customers habits are changing”
HSBC say that usage of the branch has fallen very significantly in the past years and confirmed the branch would close in December.
A spokesperson from HSBC head office told OnTheWight,
“Our branches are a very important way for our customers to bank with us and we have spent over £100 million in recent years upgrading and improving them. However, we need to ensure that our branches are in the right locations for our customers and on occasions this means that we need to close a branch where customer footfall has fallen dramatically or there has been a shift in customer shopping patterns.
“Our branch in Freshwater is a case in point. Customer usage of the branch has fallen very significantly over the past few years.
“Customers habits are changing – they are now increasingly using branches where they work, or they are using the 24 hour convenience of internet or telephone banking. Our network has to be ‘fit for purpose’ and we have to ensure that our branches are located in areas where they are used.”
Next nearest branch?
We used the HSBC Website branch locator to find out where the next HSBC branch would be.
Unfortunately it wasn’t able to supply the information as the radius it searches only extends up to 10 miles.
We think the nearest branch is likely to be Newport, which depending on the route you take can be between 12-15 miles to travel.
That is of course, unless customers want to travel across the water to Lymington, which is geographically closer, but of course, much more expensive to travel to. We’ve asked HQ to confirm.
Cowes nearest branch
Update: HSBC confirm that the nearest branch would be Cowes. If travelling by bus from Freshwater, customers would need to travel to Newport and change to catch a bus to Cowes, so Newport would probably be easier.
The round trip by car is 30 miles.
“Decisions like this are never easy”
The spokesperson for HSBC went on to say,
“Decisions like this are never easy, but we are working with the small number of customers who use the branch to help them reorganise their finances ahead of the planned closure on 6th December.
“All our customers also have access to their accounts, to withdraw and pay in cash, at any UK post office and all residents of Freshwater will continue to have access to other banking facilities in the town and several ‘fee free’ ATMs within the area.
Staff being transferred
The spokesperson finished by saying,
The members of staff who man the branch at Freshwater will transfer to our other HSBC branches in the area.”
Sandown closure last year
Readers will remember HSBC closed their Sandown branch back in 2011.
Image: © Google Streeview
