‘I’m down to one option’: bank customers left frustrated by latest closures

Banks and building societies are closing at a rate of 53 a month. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

With its windows blanked out, a poster pinned to the door of the Staines branch of Lloyds Bank tells its customers they can do their “everyday banking with our mobile banking app”.

But not today. On Wednesday, when the Guardian visited Staines, they wouldn’t have got very far because the Lloyds group was battling an IT outage that left thousands of its customers unable to make payments or send money.