Despite a significant shift to online, 66 per cent of the UK population do not trust that they are safe to conduct all their banking needs online.

Since January 2015, UK banks and building societies have closed around 3,770 branches, according to SmartSearch.

The online provider of anti-money laundering services said that banks’ own systems are very difficult for fraudsters to attack, but that with more people now using online banking, criminals have turned to obtaining information directly from customers.

Based on tweets over a 30-day period that mention a bank’s Twitter handle, SmartSearch generated a trust barometer to analyse the strength of sentiment towards UK banks.

It found that NatWest had the worst ratio of negative to positive tweets out of any UK high street or challenge bank, with 59 per cent of tweets being negative.

49 per cent of Barclays’ tweets were negative, closely followed by Lloyds bank at 45 per cent.

Digital-only challengers, Starling and Atom have strong positive sentiment, according to SmartSearch.

96 per cent of Atom Bank tweets were positive, while 81 per cent of Starling Bank’s were also positive.

“This year forced many of us to adapt to digital or automated services, but it seems consumer trust is lagging behind, said John Dobson, chief executive, SmartSearch. “As anti-money laundering software providers we are aware of the threat of online fraudsters and the concern this gives consumers.”

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