Lloyds Bank in Cowbridge, located on the High Street, will be one of the stores closing according to announcements made by the banking group yesterday.

Lloyds Banking Group has announced its plans to close 56 branches across the UK.

31 Lloyds Bank branches, 10 Halifax sites and 15 Bank of Scotland locations will be affected by the closures.

The group said the closures were in response to changing customer behaviour and the move towards online banking.

Lloyd's Bank explained: ''Our customers' needs are changing. Nearly 16 million people now bank with us through Internet Banking and over 10 million use Mobile Banking.

''Branches will remain vital in meeting customers' needs but we must continually review our network to make sure we have branches in locations where customers need and use them the most.

''As a result, we've made the difficult decision to close this branch

customers are also using alternative ways to bank.''

In a breakdown of Cowbridge residents usage in their closing branch review they stated the figures behind the decision.

It said: ''Counters at Cowbridge branch are 16% quieter than a year ago and 147 of our customers use the branch on a regular monthly basis.''

54% of those that use the local bank were 55 or over which means that this group will be the most affected by the closure.

In a more general trend, younger people have moved to different methods of banking across the UK.

Accord, the independent banking union, said: ''The closure of 31 Lloyds, 10 Halifax and 15 Bank of Scotland branches has been announced today by Lloyds Banking Group with the closures scheduled between April and October 2020.

''These are the first closures to be announced since August 2019 and the scale will take some by surprise.

''The overall level of staff reductions expected as a result of the closures is under 80 (full-time equivalent) as many of the staff are expected to be redeployed into other branches. But every branch that closes, however small, has an impact on our members and the bank's customers.

''For our members, there's the possibility of disruption to their working hours and work-life balance. And for customers, the inconvenience of getting used to where their nearest Post Office is.

''We fully appreciate that the demand for high street branch banking is diminishing as customers increasingly move to app-based banking but we'll be examining LBG's plans to ensure that they're properly thought through and robustly evidenced.

''So far, all branch closures have been managed without compulsory redundancies and Accord expects the same outcome here.

''We'll be contacting our members who are impacted by the closures to offer support and representation.''