NEW Year’s Day is a bank holiday, so what does that mean for bank opening hours.
New Year’s Day is a famously quiet one on the high street, with almost all shops and banks shut – we look at which branches are open on New Year’s Eve and the first day of 2022.
1
Which banks are open on New Year’s Eve?
Banks are open on New Year’s Eve but their opening hours may be different than usual.
Most high street bank branches closed around lunchtime today.
NatWest pulled the shutters down across the country at 2pm.
Santander closed its banks nationwide at 2pm, but its customer service centres will remain open till 3pm.
Virgin Money UK shops closed at 1pm.
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Halifax closed its banks at 2pm, and so did Barclays branches.
HSBC closed branches at 12pm, 1pm or 2pm depending on their location.
Meanwhile, both TSB and Nationwide sites closed at 1pm.
However, Metro Bank will stay open, with doors not shutting will until the later time of 5pm.
Banks have advised account holders to use online banking and app services to conduct their business if branches are closed.
You can also use customer service helplines outside branch opening hours.
Are banks open on New Year’s Day?
The short answer is no.
Like Christmas Day, January 1 is marked by all of the UK’s bank branches.
And in Scotland, January 2 is a bank holiday so don’t expect you local branch to be open.
That’s a Sunday, so opening hours in the rest of the UK will differ by bank and region.
Because New Year’s Day falls on a Saturday this year, the customary New Year’s Day bank holiday will be moved to January 3.
High street bank branches will be back up and running as normal from Tuesday January 4.
Nationwide account holders have struggled as a New Year’s Eve glitch left them unable to send payments.
It followed the same problems over Christmas.
And around 75,000 Santander customers have been warned not to spend money mistakenly sent to them on Christmas Day.
One West Sussex businesswoman told us she was accidentally sent more than £3,000 and had to check it wasn’t a scam.
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