At a time when Dutch banks are doing more online and closing branches, Dutch bank SNS is to decentralise its services and focus more on personal contact with customers.

‘We are going against the trend of centralising and digitalising contact with clients,’ the bank said in a statement. ‘Customers will soon have direct access to a permanent and personal team in their nearest SNS branch, rather than a call centre with constantly changing personel or a menu of choices.’

The bank’s 200 branches are to be revamped and will replace much of the work currently done by the two big call centres in Utrecht and Groningen. The bank branches will over a complete range of advisory services.

‘We are going for ‘personal’ and lowering the threshold for people to get in touch,’ said SNS chief executive Ton Timmerman. ‘By the end of the year, all our 200 branches and the client teams will be using this new approach.’

Research published by the Dutch consumers association Consumentenbond on Monday showed that a large group of bank customers are unhappy about the levels of service and the cost of banking.

SNS was fifth in the ranking of the eight biggest Dutch banks, with the big three coming bottom of the list.