ALMOST one in three high street bank branches will disappear in the next six years as telephone and Internet banking takes over.

A report by accountancy company Deloitte Consulting says as many as 3,600 of the 11,000 traditional high street branches remaining in the UK will disappear by 2005.

The high street branch is rapidly losing its prominence as the major means of transacting money, said the report.

More than half of the banking executives surveyed said the Internet and call centres, where customers use telephone banking to check their account or pay bills, are rapidly gaining importance in their sales and marketing strategy.

John Harrison, a partner and retail banking specialist at Deloitte Consulting, said: "The level of information technology investment at the eight major UK retail banks has increased dramatically over the past decade."

The disappearance of the high street branch should not be seen as a threat or a weakness on behalf of thebanks, but rather as an "opportunity to serve and be served at a more reasonable price," said Mr Harrison.

Although full-service branches are still the most important marketing tool available to a bank or building society today, the situation is changing quickly.

Deloitte anticipates that in just five years time call centres will be level-pegging with the high street branch networks.

Internet banking will be just behind, but already level pegging with cash-machine networks in terms of importance in marketing a bank's name.

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