Gorseinon‘s banking hub opened on High Street on Thursday. And Lloyds has put off closing the town’s last bank branch until 2 November, three weeks later than planned.
The hub at 20 High Street, the former Kirstie’s Vintage Emporium opposite Home Bargains, is open 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday, with a counter run by the Post Office that serves customers of any bank.
At the counter you can withdraw cash, pay in cash and cheques, check a balance, pay bills and top up gas and electricity, and businesses can pay in takings and get change.
Which bank is in on which day
Alongside the counter is a private room where customers can book time with a community banker from their own bank, for anything more involved than a transaction. The banks take it in turns.
The board inside the hub has Barclays on Mondays, NatWest on Tuesdays, Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland together on Wednesdays, Halifax alone on Thursdays and HSBC on Fridays. Cash Access UK, which runs the hub, lists all three brands on both midweek days. It makes little difference in practice: they are one group, and the Halifax name is being wound down, with its customers moved across to Lloyds.
The counter is being staffed by the team behind Penllergaer Post Office, which said on Facebook it wished “our team every success as they begin supporting customers from across the area”, and that its own branch “remains open with our usual team”.
Lloyds stays until November, and the permanent hub has no date
Lloyds announced last September that its branch at 113 High Street would close on 12 October, one of 49 closures across the UK. The town’s three county councillors, Andrew Stevens, Jan Curtice and Nicola Matthews, now say the date is 2 November.
A note from the bank shared by the Penllergaer Village Community page gives the same date and says the delay is “to allow more time for the permanent Banking Hub to open”.
That permanent home has no date yet. The High Street unit is a temporary base, and Cash Access UK says it is “currently working to secure a long-term home for the banking hub which will offer the same services”.
The hub itself is a month late: the town council said in August it would open in September.
Once Lloyds goes, Principality Building Society will be the only other counter in the town, Barclays having closed its branch in February 2022 and HSBC its Alexandra Road branch in June 2021.
‘Pop in, say hello and use it’
The three councillors said in a Facebook post: “This hub keeps face-to-face banking on our High Street, whoever you bank with. This is a great addition to our High Street. Pop in, say hello and use it.”
Gareth Oakley, chief executive of Cash Access UK, the bank-funded company behind the hubs, said: “I’m pleased to announce that the new banking hub in Gorseinon is now open, giving local residents access to cash and in-person banking services.”
He added: “The hub is available for everyday banking transactions every day of the week, and for more specific or complex enquiries, a community banker will be on-site to assist on designated days.”
The hub was recommended by LINK, the cash machine network that decides where hubs go, after the Lloyds closure was announced. It is the 17th in Wales and the third in Swansea, after Morriston and Mumbles, which opened in May.
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