Jobs to go as Clydesdale closes more branches

The bank’s owner, CYBG, announced the closures yesterday, saying the locations would shut their doors for the first time in August.

With the exception of Glasgow, the closures mean Clydesdale will no longer have a branch presence in the towns affected.

CYBG, which last year merged with Virgin Money, said it would strive to find roles for affected staff in other branches or elsewhere within the bank.

But it said a “small number of colleagues will be at risk of redundancy”.

A spokeswoman for the bank put this number at 25.

CYBG closed nearly 80 branches across the UK in 2016, including 40 in Scotland, resulting in around 400 redundancies.

After two further Clydesdale branches shut last year, the latest closures mean the bank now has 62 branches in Scotland, nearly half the number in operation at the beginning of 2016.

Defending the latest closures, CYBG used the same excuse as other high street lenders, such as Royal Bank of Scotland has for its branch cull, saying that falling customer visits had led to the decision.