STD Banco Santander, S.A. Sponsored Adr (Spain)

By Adam Clark

Banco Santander S.A. (SAN.MC) said Wednesday that it would close 140 U.K. branches in reaction to a fall in the number of customers using physical banking.

The Spanish bank said 1,270 employees will be affected by the changes, and it expects to be able to redeploy around a third of those.

Santander said it will have a British network of 614 branches following the cuts. It will also invest 55 million pounds ($71.0 million) in refurbishing 100 branches over the next two years.

Santander is the U.K.'s fifth-largest bank.

The move is just the latest in a wave of branch closures by large banks in the U.K.

Consumer advocacy group Which calculated last year that 2,868 branches had closed between 2015 and 2018--or about 60 a month.

Santander said the number of transactions carried out via its branches has fallen by 23% over the past three years, while digital transactions doubled over the same period.

"The way our customers are choosing to bank with us has changed dramatically in recent years, with more and more customers using online and mobile channels. As a result, we have had to take some very difficult decisions over our less visited branches, and those where we have other branches in close proximity," Susan Allen, Santander UK's head of retail-and-business banking, said.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@dowjones.com; @AdamDowJones

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 23, 2019 05:58 ET (10:58 GMT)

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