THE nearest branch of a high-street bank to Monmouth is to close its doors in July – six years after the shutters came down on the Welsh town’s own branch.

Santander is proposing to close 95 branches across the country, putting 750 jobs at risk of redundancy nationally, including the Ross-on-Wye branch 10 miles away.

From July, the nearest branch will be in Hereford.

The bank claims that since 2019 there has been ‘a rapid movement of customers choosing to do their banking digitally’, and it ‘aims to close the branches in a way that will ‘minimise the impact it may have on our customers’.

The Spanish-based company, which bought up former British banking giants Abbey National and Alliance and Leicester among others, has said that the areas set to lose their community branch will be assisted instead by ‘community bankers’ who will visit local facilities such as libraries, expected to be visiting weekly.

A Santander spokesman said that the Ross branch will close on July 30 and added: “Closing a branch is always a very difficult decision and we spend a great deal of time assessing where and when we do this and how to minimise the impact it may have on our customers.

“However, we believe that the introduction of our new community bankers and the exciting plans we have for our remaining network of 349 branches and work cafés, alongside the rapid and innovative improvements to our mobile banking app, will provide the right balance of digital banking and human interaction when required.”

To support the changes, Santander will be proactively contacting all potentially vulnerable customers by phone and will assist those customers of closing branches to find other ways to bank that best suit their needs.

With Santander pulling out, it leaves Ross with only one remaining banking facility left – Nationwide.

Ross once had a full complement of banking organisations but these giants began closing their doors in 2018 when the Nat West pulled out in June of that year, followed by Barclays in August 2021, the TSB in June 2022, the HSBC in June 2023 and Lloyds bank last December.