- Thousands of branches have closed, and banks are keen to get customers in
Banks are offering coffee bars and free work spaces in a bid to attract customers to branches. And you don’t even have to be a customer to use them.
More than 6,000 bank and building society branches have closed since January 2015, reports consumer group Which? Growing numbers of those remaining are reinventing spaces to stay relevant and secure survival.
So could fresh coffee save struggling high street outlets or just delay the inevitable? Toby Walne visits three to find out.
Halifax, New Oxford Street, London
This £31.5million flagship branch boasts 13,500sq ft of prime real estate over three floors in central London.
Just before midday on a Thursday outside the branch the streets are jam-packed with shoppers and tourists.
But step inside and it is an oasis of calm – just three staff on show and half a dozen customers looking lost in the warehouse-sized building.
To my left are six cash machines – ‘take out’ and ‘put in’ – plus a couple of old blue-painted GPO phone boxes with customers invited to step inside to call Halifax. There are seven sofas and a handful of cosy chairs around the edges, but I feel self-conscious in all this space.
A giant TV screen advises me to ‘head upstairs to the café to recharge’.
On the second floor is a ‘Home Hub’ where half a dozen people are enjoying a team-building lunch. The area also includes three meeting rooms plus a ‘video room’, an empty ‘kids’ savings area’ and a ‘home buying’ space.
The Kitchen coffee bar is open. A flat white is £3.14 but barista Kaja convinces me to part with £4.50 – to include a slice of caramel shortcake.
The coffee shop is a Change Please outlet where profits ‘equip homeless people with the tools and training to become baristas’.
It’s the only thing that makes sense in this bank.
There are two long benches for eight people and two smaller tables to seat four each. I have a bench to myself and sign up to the free wi-fi.
I try to follow advice from one of the bank’s Orwellian posters to ‘Make Yourself at Home’ and tap away on my laptop.
This flagship property was snapped up in May 2018 for £31.5 million, according to website The Move Market. Small branches cost around £590,000 a year to run, according to regulator the Financial Conduct Authority.
So, I dread to think how much this one costs. Halifax is closing 119 branches this year and next.
Santander Work Cafe, London
Close to Regent’s Park is the Santander Work Cafe. Inside there are two staff in the foyer. I ask one: ‘Where is the bank?’ She replies: ‘We can get someone to help you if you need – but we are mostly digital.’
The open space includes sofas, soft chairs and seven desk spaces plus two further large tables that each fit eight people where I sit. I count 23 people who are ‘working’ rather than doing any banking.
There are half-a-dozen private rooms that include a couple of partitioned meeting areas. A jukebox screen on the wall is thankfully disabled. There are a couple of cash machines.
At 1pm, the main attraction seems to be the Work Café, run by The Colombian Coffee Company. If I pay using a Santander debit or credit card I get a 30 per cent discount.
The flat white costs £4.20 but provides a better caffeine kick than from the Halifax. Again, staff use their sales patter to convince me to part with £8 to enjoy the coffee, a £6 sandwich and snack.
I opt for the tofu and coconut coleslaw sandwich after barista Andrea tells me I will love it.
The library-like atmosphere is conducive to work, the free wi-fi is fast and there are power points dotted around.
Slogans daubed on the wall such as ‘No one can arrive from being talented alone’ indicate this is a workspace.
This ‘bank’ is part of a £27million redevelopment of Santander headquarters in 2001 to which it is attached and was opened just a year ago to join Work Cafes in Leeds and Milton Keynes.
Staff are on hand if you need help. After my first and last ever tofu sandwich, I leave at 2pm.
Virgin Money, Birmingham
The outside of this glass-fronted bank in the centre of the city gives no warning that it is anything other than a typical modern bank.
The doors slide open and in front is a counter manned by branch manager Kelly. Yet rather than given financial help I am offered coffee.
She explains I am not standing at a bank counter but a ‘yes bar’ where, after providing a drink, we can discuss my requirements. The place is empty when I visit apart from three staff.
There are a couple of ‘money rooms’ to the side for privacy but Kelly says she usually stays ‘on stage’ in the soft seating area.
She says a key part of the job is educating customers how to bank online. After explaining I am not here for banking – or a Virgin customer – I expect to be booted out.
But Kelly says I can work in the branch for free, which includes using its internet and electricity. If there were a group of four of us, we could book a meeting room for a suggested £25 or £50 donation.
The coffee from a machine is free but the quality compared to other bank baristas is poor.
This is one of eight Virgin ‘coffee lounges’ – but it feels to me still more of a bank than a place to work.
I sit in a booth marked ‘Grow bolder, not older’. Perhaps these barista bars are finally softening me up – as I even like this corporate slogan. Unlike other branches, this outlet costs no more to run than if it were a traditional bank.
Not everyone is convinced.
Passerby Pat Parkin, 75, tells me: ‘If I want a coffee I go to a coffee bar. All these banks are playing the same game – pushing us towards online banking. Coffee bars are a soft-sell way to try to do this.’
