Ulster Bank and KBC account closures jump in February

KBC and Ulster Bank still have over 227,000 currents accounts open. Picture: Denis Minihane

Account closures at KBC Bank and Ulster Bank accelerated in February as the two companies continued to wind down their operations in Ireland.

Central Bank statistics show 185,176 current and deposit accounts with the two banks were closed in the four weeks up to the end of February. This is a 164% increase compared to the same period in January, when 81,799 accounts were closed.

The Central Bank said the large increase was “predominantly driven” by the acceleration of bank closures in addition to the scheduled transfer of KBC Bank deposit accounts to Bank of Ireland.

Ulster Bank’s remaining 63 branches will cease transactions at the end of this month and close on April 21. KBC closed all its branches, bar one located in Grand Canal in Dublin, permanently last week.

Another reason for the high volume of closures was the transfer of deposit accounts from KBC to Bank of Ireland following an agreement between the two lenders.

This brings the total number of account closures between the two companies to 881,850 since the beginning of 2022. Of those, 454,974 were current accounts and the remainder were deposit accounts.

However, the two banks still have 227,694 current accounts that remain open, of which 80,335 were said to be the customer’s primary account.

The three remaining retail banks — AIB, Bank of Ireland, and Permanent TSB — have seen 1,107,083 current and deposit accounts opened with them since the beginning of 2022. A total of 104,847 of those were opened in the four weeks to end-February.

In addition, credit unions, which are authorised to provide current account services, have issued about 69,000 new cards between the beginning of 2022 and January 2023.

Total household deposit balances in Ulster Bank and KBC Bank equated to €3.2bn at end-January 2023, falling by an average of €1.1bn per month from November to January. 

In total, there has been a reduction of €12bn in household deposits with the banks since the beginning of 2022.