THE BANK of Scotland is to close 13 branches in Scotland by mid September.
The development came a day after the Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed they are to close several branches across Scotland, including at least one which was the 'last bank in town'.
The banks' announcements have been criticised by the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland who warned last year that around 100 Scottish towns and high streets were facing local closures.
The BoS, part of the Lloyds Banking Group, confirmed 13 branches in Glasgow, Paisley, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen would be shut by September 18. It comes after a strategic review of the business which was announced in October last year.
Four of the branches are in Glasgow (Duke Street, Muirend, Glasgow Cross and Hillhead), seven are in Edinburgh (Marchmont, Blackhall, Fairmilehead, St James, Holyrood, Murrayfield and Sighthill) and one is in Aberdeen (Torry).
The BoS branch in Burghead, Moray, shut on May 12 and has been replaced with a mobile branch service.
A bank spokesman said: "Our focus has been on urban areas where there is another Bank of Scotland branch in close proximity in order to minimise the disruption to customers. Branches continue to play an important role for Bank of Scotland and we apologise to customers for any inconvenience this may cause"
Colin Borland, the FSB's head of external affairs in Scotland, said: "This is a bad week for Scottish towns and underlines a worrying trend. While we support the use of technology to provide better services, businesses need locations to deposit and withdraw cash.
"Bank branches also provide important footfall to our high streets. Business owners want to look their manager in the eye when they do deals and develop relationships.
"We urge Scotland's big banks to revisit this decision and pledge to stop abandoning small town Scotland.
"Our warning that large public and private sector bodies are pulling the rug from many local economies has come to fruition. As long as big bodies continue to reach the same conclusion over and over again - that consolidating their estate is an easy way to deliver short-term paper savings - then small town Scotland will continue to lose out."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.Â
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.Â
That is invaluable.Â
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article