Butterfield Bank is to axe phone banking in the new year.

The bank said a lack of demand, new technology and support needs were behind the decision to end the service.

A spokesman for the bank said: “Telephone banking has been trending downward, while usage of alternative delivery channels has been increasing.”

He added that a secure mobile banking app launched in 2013 had increased the range of remote banking services available on smart phones or tablets and had steadily increased in popularity.

The spokesman said: “Given the changes in usage volumes among customers and the availability of newer technology, we elected to discontinue telephone banking services concurrently with other work being done on our telephony infrastructure in January 2015.”

He added that 70 per cent of phone banking customers were already registered for other remote services like online or mobile banking.

“We are in the process of getting in touch with telephone banking customers to provide them with advance notice of this change and more information about our other automated banking services, should they require it.

“Live agents in our local call centre will continue to be available during business hours to assist with their account enquiries.”