The great British bank branch has been having a hard time of it for years now, with cash machines and counters steadily giving way to apps and video calls. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Guildford is about to feel that shift in the same sort of manner that other high streets around the country have been doing for some time.
Halifax has confirmed that its branch at the bottom of the High Street, which has been a fixture of the town since the 1990s, will close for good next month, following in that trend of seeing big banks closing their doors permanently.
An Institution Is Leaving
The Guildford branch will shut on the 24th of September, with its sister branch on Commercial Way in Woking closing the day before. Halifax confirmed the closures this month as part of a wider overhaul that will see the Halifax brand itself disappear, folded into Lloyds. Both branches have been fixtures of their respective high streets for many years, with Halifax having opened on Commercial Way in Woking at around the same time it set up shop in Guildford, around three decades ago. Given the link to Lloyds, this has been on the cards for some time.
The two closures form part of a batch of 15 branches closing across the country as Halifax is absorbed into Lloyds, with only a handful of Halifax-branded branches expected to remain once the changes are complete. According to the bank’s own figures, the Guildford and Woking branches were each seeing around 400 customers a month, which is a relatively modest footfall when compared to the likes of Basingstoke and Horsham. That will have done little to help the cases of the two branches, as Lloyds looks to trim the fat around the country.
The Bigger Picture
Halifax and Bank of Scotland have been part of the Lloyds Banking Group since 2009 and for some years customers of all three brands have already been able to use any of the group’s branches, regardless of which bank they actually use themselves. The rebrand, which was announced in the July of 2026, takes that logic a step further, with the Halifax name being phased out entirely over the course of 2027. Existing customers will find their accounts moved across to Lloyds and managed through the Lloyds app, though account numbers and sort codes will stay the same.
Once the Guildford branch closes, the town will be left with eight banks and building societies still trading on the High Street, including the nearby Lloyds branch, which is staying open. It is the fact that that branch still exists that has made it easy for the powers that be to make the choice to close the Halifax branch. Woking will have a similar fate, retaining six banks once Halifax departs. The bank closures that have been happening elsewhere join this one, which will leave High Streets like Guildford’s looking a little bit different to how they did a decade ago.