Swindon-based Nationwide Building Society is to open a branch in Glastonbury, where the last bank closed earlier this year, to pilot new ways of using technology to give people access to financial services.
The Somerset town, with a population of around 9,000 and a healthy tourist industry, has been without a traditional bank branch since Lloyds pulled up the shutters in April. 
Now Nationwide, which has nearly 700 branches across the UK, is to open a branch in the town next year.
The UK’s largest building society with around 15m customers says it believes that there is still a role for the branch on the high street by offering people the choice of managing their money using the latest technology as well as having staff in the branch.
It said half of all new current accounts in the first six months of this year were opened in a branch. Of these, almost one in five current accounts were opened through Nationwide NOW, its high-definition video link service which connects members in a branch with staff in one of its admin centres.
Nationwide said the pilot branch – which will open in the town centre next summer – would enable it to test the viability of whether it can use its investment in technology to bring financial services to communities left without a bank.
Around 1,000 people in Glastonbury have signed a petition saying they would open accounts with Nationwide if it opens a branch in the town.
Chief executive Joe Garner said: “As a building society, we are motivated by a powerful social purpose, continuing to seek ways to make a tangible difference to members’ lives through our mission of building society, nationwide.
“Our investment in Nationwide NOW, combined with personal service, is what allows us to explore this in a sustainable way. The people of Glastonbury have been crying out for a bank, we can offer them something different, a building society!”
The announcement came as Nationwide unveiled a 13% fall in pre-tax profits to £696m in the six months to the end of September.
Gross mortgage lending rose by 17% to £17.5bn, with mortgages for first-time buyers up by 50% to a record 38,600.
Deposits increased by 80% to £4.7bn, while the number of current accounts opened climbed by 36% to a record high of 377,000.
