I spent a day at the only bank branch left in Windsor

In summer 2021, the historic and royal town of Windsor had six bank branches.

Two years later, it was left with just one – with Nationwide Building Society the sole branch now in existence to serve a population of 32,000.

Barclays and HSBC were the last high street banks to shut their doors, days after one another in August 2023. 

Windsor has a bustling high street, helped by the many tourists who flock to the town to see the world-famous castle and it has a slightly older demographic. 

Savings and banking reporter Helen Kirrane took a trip to Berkshire and spent a day at Nationwide to see what it’s like to be the only branch in town… 

Not going anywhere: Nationwide’s Windsor branch will stay open until at least 2026 

‘When are you closing?’ a customer asked as she was withdrawing cash at one of the tills at Nationwide Building Society’s Windsor branch.

‘You’re not going to get rid of us that easily’ was the response of the customer service assistant who was helping her.

Nationwide is now the only bank branch serving the town, so no-one could blame the quizzical customer for asking.

The same question was echoed by no less than four visitors over the course of the day I spent in Windsor’s last branch. 

Nationwide has a sign in this branch – and many others – reading: ‘If your local bank or building society is closing, why not join us instead?’ as it promises to keep 605 branches open across the country.

Nationwide says the branch now serves around 8,000 people – or a quarter of the local population. Put simply, if you want a current account with a branch and live locally, Britain’s largest mutual is your only option.

My visit highlighted the importance of branches in a world of app-based banking, in which many older and vulnerable customers cannot fathom.

For example, face-to-face banking is vital when it comes to the fight against rising banking fraud, and for spotting signs of financial abuse too, which we highlight below. 

All the usual high street names are in Windsor – M&S, Boots, a Post Office and Greggs – but banks are notably absent.

Alongside Nationwide is the small private Swedish bank, Handelsbanken, but the building society is the last mainstream name standing. 

It is home to one of just two cash machines in the town. The other ATM is tucked away in a branch of Waitrose, which not many people know about, the staff at the branch told me.

Mondays are the busiest day at the Nationwide branch and this one was no exception. 

By 11am there was a queue of seven people despite the grizzly grey day, with six Nationwide staff members on hand to help customers with their various banking needs.

Most of the customers who come in are withdrawing or depositing cash but there were also some opening current accounts and savings accounts.

Nationwide’s director of retail services Mandy Beech tells me that 30 per cent of Nationwide current accounts are opened in branch.

The range of what customers ask of Nationwide staff ranges from basic deposits or withdrawals to asking a question about fraud and scams or Power of Attorney and bereavement.

Such was the demand for cash on the last surviving Windsor bank branch while I was there that its ATM had run out of cash, so customers were not able to use it for a few hours until more arrived.

Nationwide’s ATM has seen a 73 per cent spike in use since becoming the last branch in town, its data shows.

Staff at the branch are trained on basic budget planning, and there has been a focus on making sure everyone is up to speed on mortgages and interest rates with the many Bank of England rate rises over the last two years.

Below, the graphic shows where the branches have shut in Windsor. 

Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Lloyds Bank and Halifax sit empty, while Metro Bank has turned into a Mountain Warehouse and Santander has turned into an Indian restaurant. 

Vanishing act: Six banks have shut their doors in Windsor within the space of two years 

From behind the counter, I was struck by a question I heard again and again when customers were withdrawing cash: ‘Are you going to be doing some shopping today?’ or ‘are you up to anything nice?’.

These casual conversation starters can give way to more serious revelations though.

Emma, who has been working at Nationwide for 39 years, when the mutual had only three savings accounts, has seen a full gamut of customers come and go.

She told me a chilling tale of an elderly customer who came into the branch to transfer £30,000 from his account to his son’s account, or so he said.

Emma became suspicious due to the way he was acting. 

She said: ‘Sometimes when it comes to customers you see everyday and have built that relationship with, you just know when something is not right and you get a feeling in your gut.’

When probed a bit more, it turned out that someone was coercing the customer into transferring the cash, and had bullied him into telling Nationwide staff a false story.

If it had not been for Emma picking up that something was off, the fraud might have gone undetected and the customer could have lost £30,000 of his savings.

If there wasn’t a branch for this type of fraud to take place in person, it would likely shift to over the phone and online. 

Casey, who has been working at Nationwide for eight years, told me of another time when a woman came in to the branch and asked to withdraw £4,000 from a Nationwide account.

Noticeably absent: Windsor’s highstreet is bustling, but has a decided lack of banks

She provided a passport, which Casey quickly realised was fake. 

Casey said: ‘I just knew something wasn’t right and that it was a fake passport, so I tried to buy some time by saying I needed to do something in the back.’

When she came back to the counter, the woman was gone. Further investigations showed the person was posing as someone else, who had a legitimate Nationwide account.

Fraud on the rise 

The team at the Windsor branch have seen an uptick in fraud across the board. Many local customers will come in to the branch to ask questions about their account if they have received a scam phone call.

Apart from being located within a royal town, what makes the Windsor branch different to other Nationwide branches in the nearest towns of Slough, which is a two miles away across the Thames and Maidenhead, a five mile drive is that the customer base is generally older.

Slough and Maidenhead do have other banks apart from Nationwide, including NatWest and Lloyds Bank, but many older customers are not keen on heading to these busier spots. 

Emma tells me: ‘A 92 year old lady phoned in tears recently because she had received a call from someone saying they worked at Nationwide and asking for her bank details.’

She didn’t give the caller any details, thankfully, but wanted reassurance that her money was alright and that she hadn’t done anything wrong.

Emma added: ‘It’s not the case that customers who choose to do their banking in the branch are incapable of online banking. 

‘But what customers want more than anything if something goes wrong, like fraud for example, is reassurance and to speak to someone they trust who knows what they are doing.’

To help build confidence in customers around managing their personal finances online, the branch holds ‘tea and tech’ sessions.

The branch looks after vulnerable customers in a way that they would not be able to get if they were forced to do all their banking online.

There are features which allow the branch staff to flag that a customer is vulnerable and might need bigger text for forms and documents, for example.

In person, bank staff can also be prompted to speak louder for customers that have hearing loss, without the customer having to ask or make a fuss.

Spot the difference: A former NatWest lies abandoned with a sign reading ‘This is no longer NatWest bank’

The Nationwide in Windsor also has a safe space – a room where anyone experiencing domestic abuse can go to use a phone or speak to a member of staff. 

There are over 400 of these safe spaces in Nationwide branches across the UK.

Branch staff have received specialised training to spot signs of domestic abuse and offer support to those affected.

What is the future of Nationwide’s Windsor branch?

Windsor’s Nationwide branch will be there until at least 2026, under Nationwide’s branch promise. Everywhere there is a Nationwide branch, the mutual will keep it open until at least 2026.

The branch promise has been renewed three times since Nationwide first made it in 2019.

Nationwide has now overtaken major banks to have the biggest branch network on the high street with 605 branches. It is followed by Lloyds with 599 branches and NatWest with 485 branches, CACI data shows. 

One Windsor branch staff member said: ‘If I had a pound for every time a customer asked me ‘are you closing?’ I’d have a lot of money by now.’

It’s surprising that a town with as high a profile as Windsor has only one bank branch..

The fact is that many smaller towns without the status of Windsor are losing their banks at a rapid rate. 

Data collated by cash machine network Link indicates that, since May 2022, more than 1,200 branches have shut – or are due to close between now and late next year.

The branch promise will help to give Windsor customers the reassurance they need that they will have a physical banking outlet until 2026, but what about after that point?

Asked whether it is likely that Nationwide will renew the branch promise a fourth time, a Nationwide spokesman said: ‘As long as there is still a need for them we will keep branches open.’

So in Windsor, at least, it is a case of ‘use it or lose it’ when it comes to the town’s last remaining bank branch.