The bank’s future network will be a combination of larger branches offering improved community facilities and smaller branches using technology to offer convenient access to banking services.

It will seek to find alternative roles for the 1,270 employees who will be affected, although it only expects to be able to redeploy around a third of them.

The bank will retain 614 branches in the country following the proposed changes and plans to refurbish 100 of these over the next two years via a £55m investment.

The renovation will include a range of changes focusing on personal service, convenience and community engagement.

Santander has reported that while transactions carried out via its branches has fallen by 23% over the past three years, transactions via digital channels have grown by 99% in the same period.

Susan Allen, head of retail and business banking at Santander, said: “The way our customers are choosing to bank with us has changed dramatically in recent years, with more and more customers using online and mobile channels.

“As a result, we have had to take some very difficult decisions over our less-visited branches, and those where we have other branches in close proximity.

"We will support customers of closing branches to find alternative ways to bank with us that best suit their individual needs.

“We are also working alongside our unions to support colleagues through these changes and to find alternative roles for those impacted wherever possible.”