By Dan Ilett, 3 March 2006 13:05
NEWS
Rumours of the death of the bank branch at the hands of internet banking have been "greatly exaggerated", according to Halifax.
The bank is to open 50 new branches in the south of England over the next five years, creating 1,500 jobs as it hopes to increase its market share in current accounts.
It said in areas where it has no presence it owns just two per cent of the current account market as opposed to 15 per cent where it has branches.
A Halifax spokesman told silicon.com: "This illustrates that customers do appreciate having a branch. There's no doubt that internet banking is more popular but rumours that it's the death of the branch have been greatly exaggerated."
The 50 new branches will be located in towns where there is no Halifax presence.
The company is also moving 50 existing branches to better locations in the towns where they are sited.
The first new Halifax branch will open in Cannon Street in the City of London and will be one of 12 opening this year.
Recent research from Nottingham University said banks have closed one in five branches over the last 10 years because of the rise of internet and phone banking.
But, as around half of a bank's customers will visit the branch at least once per month, some banks are also investing heavily in new technology in their branches to improve customer service.
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1. anonymous
The queues in all the bank branches in our local high street have risen sharply over the past couple of years and I understand (as yet anecdotal evidence only but the Oxford Interent Institute is said to be looking at the evidence) that growth in Internet banking has stopped.
This is said to be because the recent sharp rise in phishing attacks has dented confidence in placing savings at any risk of being accessed.
In the US there is said to be a trend for CISOs (Chief Informaton Security Officers with those organisations large enough to employ them) with Internet Banking facilities to ring fence them, or close them down because they are being personally identified and targetted.
A recent straw poll of UK Security "experts" and technical journalists covering the subject appears to indicate that while most had Internet banking and transaction accounts those were also ring-fenced and held at arms length from savings and other accounts.
A poll of the attitudes of silicon.com readers might be interesting.