NEWTON Abbot’s HSBC branch has been spared from the latest round of the bank’s cuts.

HSBC has announced it will close 114 more branches in the UK from April, as customers using them have fallen significantly since the pandemic.

The bank said it would try to redeploy affected staff but that about 100 would lose their jobs.

Banks have closed hundreds of branches in recent years as more people bank online and lenders cut costs.

HSBC said it will invest tens of millions ‘updating and improving’ its remaining 327 UK branches.

Jackie Uhi, its managing director of UK distribution, said: ‘People are changing the way they bank and footfall in many branches is at an all-time low, with no signs of it returning.

‘Banking remotely is becoming the norm for the vast majority of us.’

She said the decision to close a branch was ‘never easy or taken lightly’, especially if it was the last branch in an area.

She said HSBC was investing heavily in "post-closure" measures, such as providing free tablet devices to help some branch customers bank digitally, alongside coaching to help them migrate to digital banking.