TWO branches of a bank are to close in our area.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) announced the closure of 162 branches throughout England and Wales this week and amongst the casualties are the Slough branch in the High Street, which is due to close on September 15 – and the Maidenhead branch on September 8.

A RBS spokesman said: “Around 792 roles (nationally) will be made redundant, and employees will be supported with the option to leave on a voluntary basis.”

RBS had previously announced that their England and Wales branches, and NatWest branches in Scotland, were to be combined into a new and separate bank, Williams and Glyn.

However, these plans have fallen through, so there are now RBS and Natwest banks operating in the same space, which the RBS Group has decided is not sustainable.

Furthermore, the bank said ever-increasing numbers of people were choosing to do all their banking online, and the numbers of customers using bank branches had slumped dramatically.

The spokesman said: “Since 2014, branch transactions across Royal Bank of Scotland in England & Wales are down 30 per cent.”