UK Banking Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sarah Davis | Last updated: October 13, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
UK banks paid households 1.65% on instant-access balances in August 2026 while charging 4.60% on newly drawn mortgages. That gap, the Axis Saver–Borrower Wedge (SBW), reached 2.95 percentage points, 0.53 points wider than a year earlier, even though Bank Rate fell from 4.00% to 3.75% over the same twelve months.
Quick Answer
The UK has 322 PRA-regulated deposit-takers as of October 1, 2026: 147 banks incorporated in the UK, 133 banks operating through UK branches of overseas, Gibraltar or EEA entities, and 42 building societies, according to Axis Intelligence Research’s count of the Prudential Regulation Authority’s register. UK-resident banks and building societies hold about £10.7 trillion of assets, 53.9% of it in foreign currencies. Bank Rate stands at 3.75%, the UK banking sector’s CET1 ratio is 15.1%, the FSCS protects deposits up to £120,000 per person per bank, and about 2,955 bank and building society branches remain open, according to an Axis Intelligence Research estimate. On the Axis Saver–Borrower Wedge (SBW), UK lenders kept 2.95 percentage points between what savers earn on interest-bearing sight deposits and what new mortgage borrowers pay.
Key Findings
- According to Axis Intelligence Research, the UK Saver–Borrower Wedge widened from 2.42 to 2.95 percentage points between August 2025 and August 2026, a 21.9% increase, while Bank Rate fell by 0.25 points.
- UK households earned 44.0% of Bank Rate on interest-bearing sight deposits in August 2026, down from 46.0% a year earlier, Axis Intelligence Research calculates from Bank of England data.
- Axis Intelligence Research estimates that about 2,955 bank and building society branches remain open in the UK as of September 2026, after 6,896 closures since January 2015, or 70% of the 2015 network.
- On the Axis Start-up Bank Survival Rate (SBSR), 29 of the 40 new UK banks authorised since 2013 still hold a PRA authorisation, a survival rate of 72.5%; they now make up 19.7% of all UK-incorporated banks.
- The average authorised push payment (APP) fraud case cost UK victims £2,324 in 2025, 12.6 times the £184 average for unauthorised fraud, according to Axis Intelligence Research calculations on UK Finance data.
How Many Banks Are There in the UK in 2026?
There are 280 PRA-regulated banks and 42 building societies in the UK, 322 deposit-takers in total, according to the List of PRA-regulated Banks as at 01 October 2026 and the matching building societies list, both published on the Bank of England’s Which firms does the PRA regulate? page. The PRA does not publish a total; Axis Intelligence Research counted every line of the register and checked the tally against two independent full listings.
| Register section (October 1, 2026) | Firms | Share of 280 banks | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banks incorporated in the UK authorised to accept deposits | 147 | 52.5% | PRA banks list |
| Banks incorporated outside the UK accepting deposits through a UK branch | 120 | PRA banks list | |
| Banks incorporated in Gibraltar accepting deposits through a UK branch or service | 6 | PRA banks list | |
| EEA banks in Supervised Run-Off with a UK branch | 7 | PRA banks list | |
| All PRA-regulated banks | 280 | 100% | Axis Intelligence Research count |
| Building societies | 42 | PRA building societies list | |
| All PRA-regulated banks and building societies | 322 | Axis Intelligence Research count |
Credit unions are deposit-takers too but sit in a separate register and are not counted here. The PRA supervises around 1,300 firms in total once insurers and major investment firms are added.
Why almost half of the UK’s banks are foreign branches
According to Axis Intelligence Research, 133 of the 280 banks on the register, or 47.5%, are not UK companies. London’s role as a wholesale and trade-finance centre explains the mix: the branch list runs from Bank of America, N.A. and JPMorgan Chase Bank to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, State Bank of India and Qatar National Bank. These branches mostly serve corporate, interbank and trade business rather than household savers.
Building societies, the mutual lenders owned by their members, make up 13.0% of all deposit-takers on the register.
Sarah Davis: The headline count hides two separate banking systems. One is a domestic retail market concentrated in a handful of ring-fenced groups; the other is an international wholesale hub where 120 overseas banks book dollar, euro and trade flows through London branches. Any statistic that blends the two says more about London’s wholesale role than about British households, as the balance sheet below shows.
How Big Is the UK Banking Sector?
Banks and building societies resident in the UK held £10,703,927 million of assets at the end of August 2026, about £10.7 trillion, up 8.8% in a year, according to the Bank of England’s Bankstats Table B1.4, the balance sheet of monetary financial institutions excluding the central bank. At the end of 2025 the figure was £10,002,202 million, 3.29 times the UK’s 2025 nominal GDP of £3,044,594 million as published by the Office for National Statistics.
| Measure | August 2025 | December 2025 | August 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total assets, £ million | 9,840,322 | 10,002,202 | 10,703,927 | Bank of England (B3UQ) |
| Sterling assets, £ million | 4,610,649 | 4,735,683 | 4,935,400 | Bank of England (B3XP) |
| Foreign currency assets, £ million | 5,229,673 | 5,266,519 | 5,768,527 | Bank of England (B3TQ) |
| Foreign currency share of assets | 52.7% | 53.9% | Axis Intelligence Research | |
| Total assets as share of GDP | 328.5% | Axis Intelligence Research, with ONS GDP |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, 53.9% of the UK banking system’s balance sheet is in foreign currencies, not sterling. Foreign currency assets grew 10.3% in the year to August 2026, faster than sterling assets at 7.0%. Measured on sterling assets alone, the system is worth 155.5% of GDP, less than half of the headline 328.5%.
Sarah Davis: The 328.5% figure is real, but it mostly measures London, not Britain. More than half the balance sheet is dollars, euros and other currencies booked by the wholesale and international banks on the register. For a question about British households and firms, the sterling figure, 155.5% of GDP, is the one to use. The gap between the two is the clearest number we have for how much of UK banking is an export business.
Which UK Challenger Banks Survived? The Start-up Bank Survival Rate (SBSR)
The PRA and FCA launched a joint New Bank Start-up Unit in January 2016 to help new entrants through authorisation. The Bank of England’s list of new banks authorised since 2013, last updated October 8, 2026, records 69 authorisations: 40 new UK banks and 29 UK branches or subsidiaries of overseas banks. Ring-fenced bodies created by the big groups are excluded.
The Axis Start-up Bank Survival Rate (SBSR) measures how many of those entrants still hold a PRA authorisation.
SBSR = banks still PRA-authorised ÷ banks authorised since 2013 × 100
| Entrant cohort, 2013 to October 2026 | Authorised | Still authorised | No longer authorised | SBSR | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New UK banks | 40 | 29 | 11 | 72.5% | Axis Intelligence Research from PRA list |
| UK branches or subsidiaries of overseas banks | 29 | 24 | 5 | 82.8% | Axis Intelligence Research from PRA list |
| All entrants | 69 | 53 | 16 | 76.8% | Axis Intelligence Research from PRA list |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, 27.5% of the new UK banks authorised since 2013 have left the register. The 11 exits are First Global Trust Bank, Masthaven, PCF Bank, Civilised Bank, Revver, GH Bank, Bank North, Ashman Finance, Fiinu Bank, Alba Bank and SilverRock Bank. The 29 survivors include the digital banks Monzo, Starling, Revolut Bank UK, Atom, Zopa, Kroo and Chetwood, the business lenders OakNorth and Allica, and the clearing bank ClearBank. Every one of the 29 survivors appears in the October 1, 2026 PRA register, where they make up 19.7% of the 147 UK-incorporated banks.
The 2022 cohort shows how hard the first years are. The Bank of England authorised four UK start-up banks between March and November 2022, according to a freedom of information response: Perenna, StreamBank, Ashman and Fiinu. Four years later, two of the four remain authorised.
Sarah Davis: A 72.5% survival rate is better than most people in the industry would guess, and the failures share a pattern. The banks that exited were mostly specialist lenders that never reached the deposit scale needed to fund a loan book at a margin. The survivors either built a cheap retail deposit base fast, like Monzo and Starling, or found a lending niche the incumbents had abandoned, like OakNorth and Allica in SME credit.
The Axis Saver–Borrower Wedge (SBW): How Much Do UK Banks Keep Between Savers and Borrowers?
Bank Rate tells you what the Bank of England charges. It does not tell you what a high-street bank pays a saver or charges a homebuyer. The Axis Saver–Borrower Wedge (SBW) measures the gap that matters to both, in one number built from two Bank of England series.
How the SBW is calculated
SBW = effective interest rate on newly drawn mortgages − effective interest rate on households’ outstanding interest-bearing sight deposits
- Borrower side: the “effective” rate actually paid on mortgages drawn in the month, from the Bank of England’s monthly Money and Credit release.
- Saver side: the effective rate on the outstanding stock of households’ interest-bearing sight deposits, which covers instant-access and easy-access savings and interest-paying current accounts.
- Unit: percentage points. The two inputs come from the same release, so the reading is always internally consistent.
The SBW is a gross spread. It does not net off funding mix, hedging, capital or operating costs, so it is not a profit margin. It shows the distance between the price of a typical new loan and the return on the most common form of household savings.
SBW reading, August 2025 and August 2026
| Measure | August 2025 | August 2026 | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bank Rate | 4.00% | 3.75% | -0.25 pp | Bank of England |
| Effective rate, newly drawn mortgages | 4.26% | 4.60% | +0.34 pp | BoE Money and Credit |
| Effective rate, households’ sight deposit stock | 1.84% | 1.65% | -0.19 pp | BoE Money and Credit |
| Saver–Borrower Wedge (SBW) | 2.42 pp | 2.95 pp | +0.53 pp | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Bank Rate pass-through to sight deposits | 46.0% | 44.0% | Axis Intelligence Research | |
| New mortgage rate minus Bank Rate | 0.26 pp | 0.85 pp | Axis Intelligence Research | |
| New time deposit rate minus Bank Rate | -0.21 pp | 0.49 pp | Axis Intelligence Research |
Inputs from the Bank of England’s Money and Credit – August 2026 and Money and Credit – August 2025 releases. Bank Rate from the Bank of England’s Bank Rate page and its August 2025 Monetary Policy Summary, which cut Bank Rate to 4% by a 5–4 vote.
This is the baseline reading of the SBW. According to Axis Intelligence Research, the wedge widened by 0.53 percentage points, or 21.9%, in a year in which monetary policy loosened. Both sides moved against the household: the rate on newly drawn mortgages rose 0.34 points, from 4.26% to 4.60%, while the rate on instant-access balances fell 0.19 points, from 1.84% to 1.65%. In cash terms, a 2.95-point wedge is worth £2,950 a year on every £100,000 that flows from an easy-access account to a new mortgage, before the bank’s other costs.
Savers who lock their money away are doing much better
The picture changes completely for fixed-term savers. The effective rate on individuals’ new time deposits reached 4.24% in August 2026, 0.49 points above Bank Rate, against 3.79% a year earlier, when it sat 0.21 points below. The rate on the existing stock of time deposits was 3.41%, so a saver rolling a maturing fixed-rate bond into a new one gains 0.83 points.
Households are noticing. In August 2026 they withdrew £1.6 billion from interest-bearing sight accounts, put £0.3 billion into time deposits and paid £4.4 billion into ISAs, out of total net deposits of £4.7 billion, according to the Bank of England.
Who pays the most: credit cards
The effective rate on interest-charging credit cards was 21.55% in August 2026, up from 21.45% in July and 21.42% a year earlier. Axis Intelligence Research calculates the gap between card borrowing and Bank Rate at 17.8 percentage points.
Sarah Davis: Rising new-mortgage rates in a cutting cycle look paradoxical until you remember that UK mortgages are priced off swap rates, not Bank Rate, and swaps price where markets expect rates to go. Instant-access deposits are priced off competition, and there is not much of it at the big banks. The SBW captures both forces in one number: banks are pricing loans to tomorrow’s rates and paying today’s loyal savers yesterday’s. The 44.0% pass-through is the figure to quote to anyone who thinks a Bank Rate cut is passed on symmetrically.
UK Mortgage and Consumer Credit Statistics 2026
Net mortgage borrowing was £4.4 billion in August 2026, up from £4.1 billion in July, and mortgage lending grew 3.6% on a year earlier, according to the Bank of England. Activity in the housing market slowed.
| Indicator | August 2025 | August 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mortgage approvals for house purchase | 64,700 | 54,900 | BoE Money and Credit |
| Mortgage approvals for remortgaging | 34,000 | BoE Money and Credit | |
| Net mortgage borrowing | £4.3 billion | £4.4 billion | BoE Money and Credit |
| Effective rate, outstanding mortgage stock | 3.89% | 4.00% | BoE Money and Credit |
| Consumer credit, annual growth | 7.1% | 9.6% | BoE Money and Credit |
| Effective rate, credit cards | 21.42% | 21.55% | BoE Money and Credit |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, approvals for house purchase fell 15.1% in a year to 54,900, below the average of around 60,100 the Bank cites for comparison. Remortgaging approvals slipped to 34,000 from 34,600 in July. The rate on the outstanding mortgage stock crept up to 4.00% from 3.97%, as borrowers roll off older, cheaper fixed deals.
Consumer credit is moving the other way. Net consumer borrowing was £2.5 billion in August, of which £1.2 billion was on credit cards, and the annual growth rate rose to 9.6% from 9.3% in July. For businesses, private non-financial companies raised £7.7 billion of net finance in August, including £5.7 billion of bank loans, and deposited £6.6 billion. Broad money (M4ex) grew 4.4% a year.
How Profitable Are the UK’s Biggest Banks? First-Half 2026 Scorecard
The four largest domestic retail franchises reported a combined £10,906 million of profit before tax for the first half of 2026, according to Axis Intelligence Research’s sum of the figures each group published. Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays UK alone account for £10,378 million.
| Bank (H1 2026) | Profit before tax | RoTE | Net interest margin | Cost:income | CET1 ratio | Customer deposits | Customer loans | Loan:deposit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lloyds Banking Group | £4,293m (statutory) | 17.1% | 3.19% (banking NIM) | 50.4% (underlying) | 13.6% | £500.9bn | £491.5bn | 98% | Lloyds H1 2026 results |
| NatWest Group | £4,318m (operating) | 19.7% | 2.48% | 46.0% (excl. litigation and conduct) | 13.2% | £448.6bn | £435.9bn | 90% (excl. repos) | NatWest H1 2026 results |
| Barclays UK (division) | £1,767m | 20.1% | 3.70% | 53% | 14.3% (Barclays Group) | £245.6bn | £220.8bn | 97% | Barclays H1 2026 results |
| Santander UK Group Holdings | £528m | 9.1% | 2.25% (banking NIM) | 54% | 14.2% | £227.2bn | £238.9bn | 105% | Santander UK H1 2026 report |
| Four franchises combined | £10,906m | £1,422.3bn | £1,387.1bn | 97.5% | Axis Intelligence Research |
Sources: Lloyds Banking Group 2026 half-year results on the FCA’s National Storage Mechanism; NatWest Group H1 2026 results and its interim results announcement; Barclays PLC interim results filed with the FCA; Santander UK Group Holdings 2026 Half Yearly Financial Report, published August 7, 2026. Definitions differ by bank and are labelled in each cell.
According to Axis Intelligence Research, the four franchises together hold £1,422.3 billion of customer deposits and lend out 97.5% of it; Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays UK alone hold £1,195.1 billion and lend out 96.1%. NatWest posts the highest group return on tangible equity at 19.7% and the lowest cost:income ratio at 46.0%. Barclays UK earns the widest margin, 3.70%, 1.22 points above NatWest’s group margin, though one is a divisional and the other a group figure.
Santander UK: the TSB deal and the motor finance charge
Santander UK is the outlier. Its profit before tax fell £236 million to £528 million, a 30.9% drop by Axis Intelligence Research’s calculation, and its RoTE of 9.1% sits 10.6 points below NatWest’s. Two one-offs explain most of it: a £179 million increase in the first-quarter provision for historical motor finance commissions, which alone cut RoTE by 110 basis points, and the acquisition of TSB, completed on April 30, 2026, which brought in 4 million customers and 4,500 colleagues. TSB lifted Santander UK’s customer loans to £238.9 billion from £200.6 billion at the end of 2025, and its total assets to £318.9 billion. Its loan-to-deposit ratio, 105%, is the only one of the four above 100%.
The structural hedge: the profit engine nobody outside banking talks about
Lloyds earned £3.4 billion from its structural hedge in the first half of 2026, up from £2.6 billion a year earlier, on a notional balance of £246 billion. Axis Intelligence Research calculates that hedge income grew 30.8% and was equivalent to 34.9% of the group’s £9,747 million of underlying net income. The hedge invests stable deposits, including non-interest-bearing current account balances, in multi-year swaps, so income keeps rising as old low-rate swaps mature even when Bank Rate falls.
The global UK groups
Barclays Group, which includes its investment bank, earned £6,066 million before tax with a 14.8% RoTE and £1,730.4 billion of total assets, the largest balance sheet of the UK-listed groups that report in sterling; Lloyds reports £994.2 billion and NatWest £745.4 billion. HSBC Holdings, which reports in dollars, made $19.5 billion of profit before tax in the first half, with an 18.2% RoTE and a 14.1% CET1 ratio, according to its interim results 2026. HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered are the UK’s three global systemically important banks, as covered on the Axis global banking statistics page; company detail sits on the Axis Barclays statistics page.
Sarah Davis: The structural hedge is why UK bank profits kept rising after Bank Rate peaked. Lloyds booked 34.9% of its income from swaps placed years ago, and that income steps up mechanically as each tranche reprices. Put that next to the SBW and the 2026 story is clear: the domestic banks are earning more on the deposits they already have and paying less to keep them.
How Strong Is UK Bank Capital in 2026?
The UK banking sector’s Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio was 15.1% at the end of June 2026, stable on the quarter, according to the Bank of England’s banking sector regulatory capital release of September 30, 2026.
| Measure (June 30, 2026) | Value | Previous quarter | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| CET1 ratio | 15.1% | 15.1% | Bank of England |
| Tier 1 ratio | 17.6% | Bank of England | |
| Total capital ratio | 20.3% | 20.2% | Bank of England |
| CET1 capital | £470 billion | £463 billion | Bank of England |
| Risk-weighted assets | £3,118 billion | £3,059 billion | Bank of England |
| UK countercyclical capital buffer | 2% | Bank of England FPC |
CET1 capital grew 1.6% in the quarter and risk-weighted assets 1.9%. Recomputed from the published totals, the ratio is 15.07%, matching the rounded 15.1%. In its July 2026 Financial Stability Report, the Financial Policy Committee kept the UK countercyclical capital buffer at its neutral setting of 2% and judged the banking system appropriately capitalised with high levels of liquidity.
For how UK capital compares with US, Swiss and euro-area banks, see the Axis US banking statistics, Swiss banking statistics and European banking statistics pages.
How Many Bank Branches Are Left in the UK?
About 2,955 bank and building society branches were still open in the UK at the end of September 2026, according to an Axis Intelligence Research estimate. Banks and building societies have closed 6,896 branches since January 2015, which Which? puts at 70% of the branches open at the start of 2015, according to its bank branch closure tracker dated September 28, 2026. No official body publishes a live national total, so Axis Intelligence Research derives one from those two figures.
Estimated branches open = closures since January 2015 ÷ share of 2015 network closed − closures since January 2015 = 6,896 ÷ 0.70 − 6,896
Because the 70% share is rounded, the true figure lies between 2,886 and 3,026. The estimate holds up against an earlier snapshot: the House of Commons Library’s Access to cash and banking services briefing of March 16, 2026 reported around 6,700 closures, equal to 68% of the 2015 network. Both snapshots imply almost the same starting network in January 2015: 9,851 branches from the September figures and 9,853 from the March figures.
| Branch closures | 2025 | Scheduled in 2026 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lloyds | 93 | 116 | Which? |
| Halifax | 101 | 88 | Which? |
| Santander | 95 | 40 | Which? |
| NatWest | 105 | 33 | Which? |
| Bank of Scotland | 24 | 28 | Which? |
| TSB | 8 | Which? | |
| Barclays | 6 | Which? | |
| HSBC | 1 | Which? | |
| Co-operative Bank | 3 | Which? | |
| All banks and building societies | 433 | 314 | Which? |
The 2026 total includes closures at banks not broken out individually. According to Axis Intelligence Research, the three Lloyds Banking Group brands, Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, account for 232 of the 314 closures scheduled for 2026, or 73.9%. Since 2015, Lloyds Banking Group has closed 1,624 branches, NatWest Group 1,574 and Barclays 1,236. A further 19 closures are already scheduled for 2027.
The network is shifting towards mutuals and shared sites. Nationwide’s group network of 696 branches, 605 Nationwide and 91 Virgin Money, became the largest in the UK in June 2026, according to its May 2026 announcement, equal to roughly 23.6% of the estimated national total. LINK had recommended 274 shared banking hubs by March 2026, of which 225 were operational, or 82.1%, and government and industry have committed to 350 hubs this Parliament. There are around 11,700 post offices, about 3.96 for every remaining bank branch, while the number of ATMs has fallen 40% since 2015.
Sarah Davis: Seven in ten branches gone in a decade is the most visible change in British banking, and it is not finished: 314 closures are scheduled this year alone, three-quarters of them at one group. The economics are the SBW and the structural hedge in reverse. A branch costs money every day, while a deposit that never moves earns the bank a margin wherever the customer opens the app. The post office counter, not the bank branch, is now the UK’s main physical banking network.
Is My Money Safe in a UK Bank? FSCS Protection in 2026
Deposits at UK-authorised banks and building societies are protected up to £120,000 per person per firm by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, according to the FSCS. The limit rose to £120,000 in December 2025. Joint accounts are covered up to £120,000 for each eligible holder, so £240,000 for a two-person account, and temporary high balances from events such as a house sale are protected up to £1.4 million for six months.
The limit applies per authorised firm, not per brand. Several high-street names share one banking licence, so a saver with accounts at two brands of the same group gets one £120,000 limit, not two. The PRA register above is the place to check which legal entity holds the licence.
Sarah Davis: The FSCS limit is the single most searched banking number in the UK, and the most misunderstood one. The question to ask is not “which bank” but “which licence”. With 147 UK-incorporated banks behind hundreds of consumer brands, that distinction decides whether a six-figure balance is fully covered.
How Many People in the UK Don’t Have a Bank Account?
About 0.9 million UK adults had no bank account in 2024, down from 1.1 million in 2022, according to the Financial Conduct Authority’s Financial Lives 2024 survey. The UK scores 87.1 and ranks 10th of 125 economies on the Axis Bank Reach and Depth Index published on our global page.
| Indicator (2024) | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Unbanked adults | 0.9 million | FCA Financial Lives |
| Unbanked adults, 2022 | 1.1 million | FCA Financial Lives |
| Day-to-day account holders not banking online or by app | 3.3 million (7%) | FCA Financial Lives |
| Digitally excluded adults | 1.2 million (2%) | FCA Financial Lives |
| Adults with no cash savings | one in ten | FCA Financial Lives |
| Adults with low financial resilience | one in four | FCA Financial Lives |
Digital exclusion has collapsed from 6.9 million adults in 2017 to 1.2 million. Lloyds alone reports around 22 million customers actively using its mobile apps out of around 28 million, which Axis Intelligence Research calculates at 78.6%. App adoption across the market is tracked on the Axis digital banking statistics and neobank statistics pages.
How Much Fraud Hits UK Bank Customers?
Criminals stole £1,279.8 million through payment fraud in the UK in 2025, up 4%, across 4,062,198 cases, according to UK Finance’s Annual Fraud Report 2026. Unauthorised fraud losses fell 5% to £703.4 million, while authorised push payment (APP) losses, where victims are tricked into sending money themselves, rose 19% to £576.4 million.
| Fraud type (2025) | Losses | Cases | Average loss per case | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unauthorised fraud | £703.4m | 3,814,128 | £184 | UK Finance; average by Axis Intelligence Research |
| Authorised push payment (APP) fraud | £576.4m | 248,070 | £2,324 | UK Finance; average by Axis Intelligence Research |
| Total | £1,279.8m | 4,062,198 | UK Finance |
According to Axis Intelligence Research, APP fraud accounts for 6.1% of cases but 45.0% of losses, and the average APP case costs 12.6 times as much as an unauthorised one. Banks prevented £1.68 billion of unauthorised fraud, £2.39 for every £1 lost. In the first year of mandatory reimbursement, 88% of in-scope APP losses were paid back to victims. UK Finance reports that 66% of APP fraud begins online and a further 17% via telecoms. The global and US fraud picture is broken down on the Axis banking fraud statistics page.
What Would Change These Numbers Before Year-End 2026?
The Monetary Policy Committee’s next decision on November 5, 2026 sets the Bank Rate side of the SBW pass-through, and each monthly Money and Credit release resets both sides of the wedge. The PRA updates its register of banks and building societies every month, so a new authorisation or a lost licence moves the bank count and the SBSR. Third-quarter trading statements from the large groups will update the scorecard, and the Bank of England’s next quarterly capital release will reset the CET1 table.
Methodology
Scope. This page covers banks and building societies authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority, the household and business lending and deposit statistics published by the Bank of England, the capital position of the UK banking sector, deposit protection, financial inclusion and payment fraud. Register counts are as of October 1, 2026; the balance sheet as of August 2026; rates and flows as of August 2026; capital as of June 30, 2026; bank results for the six months to June 30, 2026; fraud for calendar 2025; inclusion for 2024.
Sources. Every figure was fetched from its publisher on October 13, 2026: the PRA lists of banks and building societies as at October 1, 2026, the Bank of England’s list of new banks authorised since 2013 and its 2022 freedom of information response; Bankstats Table B1.4 (last updated September 29, 2026) and ONS GDP series YBHA (released September 30, 2026); the Bank of England Money and Credit releases for August 2025 and August 2026, its Bank Rate page and August 2025 Monetary Policy Summary; the banking sector regulatory capital release for 2026 Q2 and the July 2026 Financial Stability Report; the FSCS; the FCA’s Financial Lives 2024 release; the UK Finance Annual Fraud Report 2026; the Which? bank branch closure tracker (dated September 28, 2026), the House of Commons Library briefing CBP-9453 and Nationwide’s May 21, 2026 announcement; and the first-half 2026 results of Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group, Barclays, Santander UK and HSBC. No figure comes from a ranking publisher, an aggregator or memory.
Formulas.
- Saver–Borrower Wedge (SBW) = effective rate on newly drawn mortgages − effective rate on households’ outstanding interest-bearing sight deposits.
- Bank Rate pass-through = household sight deposit rate ÷ Bank Rate × 100.
- Estimated branches open = closures since January 2015 ÷ 0.70 − closures since January 2015; range from a 69.5% to 70.5% closed share.
- Assets to GDP = December 2025 total MFI assets (B3UQ) ÷ 2025 nominal GDP (YBHA) × 100. Foreign currency share = B3TQ ÷ B3UQ × 100.
- Start-up Bank Survival Rate (SBSR) = entrants still PRA-authorised ÷ entrants authorised since 2013 × 100.
- Average loss per fraud case = losses ÷ cases. APP multiple = APP average ÷ unauthorised average.
- Combined loan-to-deposit ratio = sum of customer loans ÷ sum of customer deposits for Lloyds, NatWest, Barclays UK and Santander UK.
- Every calculation was run twice, in floating point and in exact rational arithmetic, before entering the text.
Scope notes. The SBW is a gross price spread, not a margin. Scorecard metrics follow each bank’s own definitions, which differ, and Barclays UK is a division while Lloyds, NatWest and Santander UK are groups. The SBSR counts authorisation status, not whether a bank was sold or merged; a bank that left the register through acquisition counts as an exit. No official body publishes a live national branch count; the branch total is an Axis estimate derived from Which? closure data and cross-checked against the House of Commons Library, with its range published alongside. Balance-sheet totals are monthly, not seasonally adjusted, and cover UK-resident banks and building societies on an unconsolidated basis, so they differ from the group totals in company accounts; assets-to-GDP compares the December 2025 stock with 2025 GDP. Santander UK’s figures include TSB from May 1, 2026.
About This Dataset
The fact table behind this page, uk-banking-statistics.csv, holds 272 rows: PRA register counts by section, branch closures by bank with the Axis branch estimate, the Bankstats balance sheet in sterling and foreign currency with ONS GDP, the full start-up cohort with survival calculations, every Bank of England rate and flow used for the SBW, capital, deposit protection, inclusion, fraud and first-half bank results, plus cross-references and declined calculations. Each row carries the value, unit, as-of date, geography, segment, source organisation, document, URL, retrieval date, a primary-source flag, an Axis-calculated flag and a method note with the formula for every calculated row.
- License: CC BY 4.0. Free to reuse with attribution to Axis Intelligence Research.
- Mirrors: Hugging Face, Kaggle and GitHub under the same file name.
- Citation line: Axis Intelligence Research, UK Banking Statistics 2026, 2026.
Cite This Page
APA: Axis Intelligence Research, & Davis, S. (2026, October 13). UK banking statistics 2026: How many banks, the saver–borrower wedge and which challenger banks survived. Axis Intelligence. https://axis-intelligence.com/uk-banking-statistics/
MLA: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “UK Banking Statistics 2026: How Many Banks, the Saver–Borrower Wedge and Which Challenger Banks Survived.” Axis Intelligence, 13 Oct. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/uk-banking-statistics/.
Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research, and Sarah Davis. “UK Banking Statistics 2026: How Many Banks, the Saver–Borrower Wedge and Which Challenger Banks Survived.” Axis Intelligence, October 13, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/uk-banking-statistics/.
UK Banking, Answered With Data
Why is my instant-access savings rate so much lower than Bank Rate?
Because banks pass on only part of Bank Rate to easy-access balances. Households earned an effective 1.65% on interest-bearing sight deposits in August 2026, 44.0% of the 3.75% Bank Rate, according to Axis Intelligence Research calculations on Bank of England data. New fixed-term deposits paid 4.24%.
Did mortgage rates fall when the Bank of England cut rates?
No. Bank Rate fell from 4.00% to 3.75% between August 2025 and August 2026, but the effective rate on newly drawn mortgages rose from 4.26% to 4.60%, according to the Bank of England. New mortgages are priced off swap rates, which reflect expected future rates.
What is the Saver–Borrower Wedge (SBW)?
The SBW is an Axis Intelligence Research measure of the gap between the rate on newly drawn mortgages and the rate households earn on interest-bearing sight deposits. It was 2.95 percentage points in August 2026, up from 2.42 a year earlier.
How big is the UK banking sector compared with the economy?
UK-resident banks and building societies held £10,002,202 million of assets at the end of 2025, 328.5% of 2025 GDP, according to Axis Intelligence Research calculations on Bank of England and ONS data. On sterling assets alone the ratio is 155.5%, because 53.9% of the balance sheet is now in foreign currencies.
How many bank branches are left in the UK?
About 2,955 bank and building society branches remain open as of September 2026, within a range of 2,886 to 3,026, according to an Axis Intelligence Research estimate from Which? data. Banks have closed 6,896 branches since January 2015, 70% of the 2015 network, and 314 more closures are scheduled for 2026.
How many banks are licensed in the UK?
280 banks and 42 building societies were regulated by the PRA on October 1, 2026, 322 deposit-takers in total. Of the banks, 147 are incorporated in the UK and 133 operate through UK branches of overseas, Gibraltar or EEA banks, according to Axis Intelligence Research’s count of the PRA register.
Is Monzo, Starling or Revolut a real bank with FSCS protection?
Monzo Bank, Starling Bank and Revolut Bank UK all appear on the PRA’s list of UK-incorporated banks authorised to accept deposits as of October 1, 2026, so eligible deposits with them are FSCS-protected up to £120,000 per person.
How many challenger banks have failed or given up their licence?
Of the 40 new UK banks authorised since 2013, 11 are no longer PRA-authorised, an exit rate of 27.5%. The other 29 survive, a Start-up Bank Survival Rate of 72.5%, according to Axis Intelligence Research.
How much of my money is protected if my UK bank fails?
Up to £120,000 per person per authorised firm, or £240,000 on a joint account with two eligible holders. Temporary high balances, such as house-sale proceeds, are protected up to £1.4 million for six months, according to the FSCS.
Which UK bank is the most profitable?
In the first half of 2026, NatWest Group reported a 19.7% return on tangible equity and Barclays UK 20.1% at divisional level, against 17.1% at Lloyds Banking Group and 9.1% at Santander UK. NatWest earned £4,318 million of operating profit before tax and Lloyds £4,293 million of statutory profit before tax.
Do UK banks have to refund scam victims?
Under the mandatory reimbursement regime, 88% of in-scope APP fraud losses were reimbursed in its first year, according to UK Finance. APP losses totalled £576.4 million in 2025, an average of £2,324 per case.
How well capitalised are UK banks?
The UK banking sector’s CET1 ratio was 15.1% at June 30, 2026, with £470 billion of CET1 capital against £3,118 billion of risk-weighted assets, according to the Bank of England. The countercyclical buffer is set at its neutral 2%.