Santander is to close its banks earlier in yet another blow to local branch services. 

The Spanish bank has said its British branches will now close at 3pm on weekdays, an hour and a half earlier than at present. 

It said the decision was in response to a drop in traffic at its high street sites and it would now focus on helping its customers bank over the phone or online. Its branches will now close earlier than most primary schools in the latest sign of the decline of the bricks and mortar bank.

The bank has 450 branches. All apart from three located in shopping centres will be affected. 

Some 316 branches will close even earlier at weekends; they will be open from 9.30am to 12.30pm on Saturdays. Seventy-six branches were already operating “half day” hours on a Saturday, while 58 do not open over the weekend at all. 

It comes after Santander closed 111 of its branches last summer. 

The bank’s Richard Owen said the changes would help prevent further branch closures while “providing significant additional capacity to help customers who want to talk to us by phone”.  

“We have seen a continuing reduction in branch usage over several years, both before and since the peak of the pandemic. We want to make sure we have the right mix of channels to help our customers however they choose to bank with us,” he added. 

The number of customers using Santander’s branches fell by a third over the two years before the pandemic, a further 50pc in 2020 and by 12pc last year. Digital transactions grew by around 20pc in each of those years, the bank said. 

But experts said Santander’s move would disadvantage older customers who still depended on in-person banking and would also hit the high street economy. 

Jenny Ross of the consumer group Which? said the decision “continues a concerning overall trend of banks chipping away at face-to-face services and opening hours”. 

Jackie Mulligan of the Government’s High Streets Task Force said the announcement was a “significant blow”. 

“It comes at a time when inflation and rising energy bills are squeezing people’s spending power in a way we haven’t seen for decades, which is hitting local shops hard. The shift to digital banking is irreversible, but so too is the damage caused by banks reducing their presence or opening hours on our high streets,” she said. 

Santander has promised that customers will still be able to go into a branch for face-to-face help with their finances by booking a meeting to take place between 3pm and 5pm, when other services will have stopped for the day. 

It added it was writing to regular branch users to explain the changes and “offer any support they may need” as a result. No staff will lose their jobs because of the shorter hours, it said.