THE Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) which has announced the closure of 259 branches this morning, says none of the remaining Worcestershire branches are affected.

The bank, still 72 per cent owned by the taxpayer, said 62 RBS branches and 197 NatWest outlets nationally will be closed by mid 2018, with around 1,000 employees affected.

The bank has branches of RBS and Natwest in Worcester city centre, and of Natwest in Bridge Street, Evesham, but a RBS spokesman has confirmed none of these will be closing.

Droitwich Spa and Malvern's NatWest branches both closed earlier this year, with NatWest explaining those closures by highlighting the 400 per cent increase in mobile and online transactions between 2010 and 2015.

On the national closures, RBS spokesman said: “More and more of our customers are choosing to do their everyday banking online or on mobile.

"Over 5 million customers now use our mobile banking app and one in five only bank with us digitally.”

However, union Unite described the move as a “betrayal” and ripped into the Government for allowing the closures to proceed.

The union’s national officer Rob MacGregor said: "Serious questions need to be asked about whether these closures mark the end of branch network banking."

The Government said it now faces a £26.2 billion loss on its stake in RBS, down from a previous forecast of £29.2 billion in March, after a recent recovery in the value of the bank’s shares.