Being Local: How Closing Branches Effects Your Community Brand

If your bank or credit union builds its brand around “being local,” then you need to think seriously about what will happen when you start closing branches. Because that day could be right around the corner.

“We care about here,” reads a new ad from Yorkshire Bank. “Here is where we live and work. And it’s where we’ve lived for over 150 years, supporting the communities, businesses and individuals around us.”

“We care because we’re close to you,” the ad continues. “Your home is our home. What affects you affects us, which is why we want to play our part in making where we live a better place.”

Sounds like a bank with roots firmly planted in local communities, doesn’t it? And yet no more than a few weeks after bank’s new ad campaign debuted, Yorkshire announced it would be closing a branch in the small town of Middleton, near Leeds.

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