Banks - when are they going to fully reopen?

[Mumratheevergiving]

It was understandable that banks reduced their opening hours in the height of the crisis but the branches local to me are still offering reduced hrs - opening 10-3 and no Saturday mornings. Can anyone explain why they have not reopened to their original hrs? I can only think they are cutting their costs (possibly thinking down the line they will close more branches?) but its frustrating to lose the opportunity to do Saturday banking and have them closed outside of core working hrs.

Judging from the queues in my local High Street a lot of people need to visit the bank in person.

Santander is open Saturdays in most (all?) places.

@Mumratheevergiving Just because the government isn't advising people not to shield anymore does not mean that the bank is not trying to do the right thing by looking after their staff. I've seen hundreds of complaints on MN about people having to go back to work after shielding. Companies can't win, people moan if they have to go back to work and people like you aren't happy when companies support their staff not to go back to working with cash and the public. And they are paying all of their staff in full while giving them other roles, not furloughing them.

[quote delilahbucket]@Mumratheevergiving Just because the government isn't advising people not to shield anymore does not mean that the bank is not trying to do the right thing by looking after their staff. I've seen hundreds of complaints on MN about people having to go back to work after shielding. Companies can't win, people moan if they have to go back to work and people like you aren't happy when companies support their staff not to go back to working with cash and the public. And they are paying all of their staff in full while giving them other roles, not furloughing them.[/quote]
No, I think it’s sensible that companies still protect staff that are extremely vulnerable either by facilitating WFH or in non customer facing roles. I’m not sure of the number of people that fall into the extremely vulnerable category but I would be surprised that there are so many that work in banks that it has kept so many branches closed or reopening on much shortened hours.

So according to the ONS figures

Estimates for September to November 2019 show a record 32.90 million people aged 16 years and over in employment

More than 2.2 million people were advised by the government to shield during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as they had been classified by the NHS as clinically extremely vulnerable. An estimated 627,000 (28%) clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) people previously worked before being advised to shield. The percentage employed (28%) is low compared with the general population, but CEV people includes children, those over state pension age and those unable to work for health reasons.

My maths on this may well be dodgy but that’s about 2% of the entire working population that were told to shield. It doesn’t explain why banks are particularly impacted with reopening to normal service hours? Especially when schools etc are to reopen full time it seems odd that banks cannot?

Delilahbucket The hours your husbands bank are operating seem ok though - presumably not that different to what they usually offer? That’s not the case for many other branches / places.