A Bolton town centre bank is set to reduce its opening times on Saturdays later this year.

Beginning on Saturday July 23, the town’s branch of Santander on Deansgate will only be open on half days on Saturday, between the hours of 9.30am to 12.30pm.

This is part of wider changes to opening times introduced by the bank across the country with managers saying that customers changing habits have led them to rethink opening times.

Santander head of branches Richard Owen said: “These changes will enable us to maintain our existing branch network while providing significant additional capacity to help customers who want to talk to us by phone.  

“We have seen a continuing reduction in branch usage over several years, both before and since the peak of the pandemic, with many customers preferring to transact digitally or contact us by phone.

“We want to make sure we have the right mix of channels to help our customers however they choose to bank with us.”

Bolton’s Santander branch is currently open for full days on Saturdays, between 9.30am and 4.30pm.

The company says that no branches will be closed because of this policy and that they will remain open as normal on weekdays.