Customers with HSBC, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) are set to be hit with reduced walk-in access to services, according to industry sources. HSBC is expected axe about 200 branches in 2016 - a fifth of the bank's branches in Britain - after already closing more than 100 last year. At the same time, RBS and Barclays will close another 100 each. The number of branches operated by Britain's biggest banks has halved in the last 20 years. Firms are now required to assess how closes could hit local communities before a branch closure. Pensioners and vulnerable people without access to the internet are among those hardest hit by reduced branch services.