TSB launches weekly pop-up service ahead of Thurso branch closure
TSB has launched its weekly pop-up service in Thurso ahead of this month's closure of the long-established branch in the town centre.
The new facility will operate every Tuesday at the North Coast Visitor Centre between 10am and 4.30pm. The move follows the bank's controversial decision to close its Traill Street premises as part of plans to shut 70 branches across the UK.
TSB says there has been declining branch use and increasing numbers of customers changing to digital banking.
The Thurso branch is closing on Wednesday, April 20. The pop-up opened for the first time on Tuesday of this week.
It is one of more than 40 such facilities across the country in locations where a branch has closed and, in the words of TSB, "it takes longer to get to the nearest branch". The bank says pop-ups support customers with banking needs such as making payments and getting help with products and services, as well as assistance with bereavements.
TSB regional director Stuart Gray said: “Although we’ve seen a significant rise in customers using digital banking, we know accessing banking services remains important to many customers and we’re always looking for innovative and inclusive ways to help them.
"This pop-up service will support our customers in Thurso who still want to access a local face-to-face service.”
Campaigners fought hard to save Thurso's TSB branch, arguing that for many long-serving customers online banking is not an option. But in February, after an online meeting with bank bosses, they accepted that there would be no change of heart.
The campaigners highlighted an on-the-spot survey, on a "freezing cold" Monday morning, carried out by Thurso Community Council chairman Ron Gunn and Iain Gregory, co-founder of Caithness Roads Recovery. They counted 56 customers entering the bank and 55 people using the cash machine over a two-and-a-half-hour period.
They maintained these figures contrasted with TSB's findings that the branch was down to one regular weekly customer before the closure was announced. The bank representatives pointed to a "substantial" drop in footfall since 2019.
Mr Gunn said this week: "Like many other TSB customers in Caithness I am very disappointed that it has gone from a popular high street bank to a six-and-a-half-hour, one-day-a-week pop-up service that doesn't even handle cash.
"The regional managers obviously have very little sympathy for the 40 per cent of their customers who, for a number of reasons, don't use online banking. If Caithness people want to go to a fully functional TSB branch they will now have to travel over 100 miles to Inverness."
The TSB branch in Wick closed in March last year.