PNC, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo behind spate of bank branch closures – is YOURS affected?

PNC filed to close 11 branches in the Northeast, Midwest and Texas in a single week last month.

This is more than half of the total of 20 planned US bank closures announced between March 17 and 23, the last full week for which figures are available.

Citibank, which has tended to close fewer branches than its rivals in recent years, said it would close three: two in New York and one in San Francisco.

Bank of America will close two, in Florida and New York, while Wells Fargo said it would close one in California. Lesser-known Citizens Community Federal, unrelated to Citizens Bank, Alerus and Town Bank are each closing one.

This brings the total number of closures announced so far in 2024 to 288. Scroll down to see the most recent closings, plus links to all the others from this year.

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Three of the openings were reported by Chase, which has already filed to open more than 50 branches this year alone.

In comparison, during that same week, banks notified your regulator the Comptroller of the Currency of seven vacancies.

They were distributed among Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, New York, Massachusetts and Illinois.

That sets it apart from most national banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citizens and US Bank, which are increasingly confident that online banking can meet the needs of most customers and close predominantly rural branches.

Banks said they would close 41 branches in a single week in January, the highest single-week figure so far in 2024.

Closures can generate significant savings. The average independent branch costs $2.6 million a year to operate, according to Bancography, an Alabama-based consulting firm that advises banks.

The last year in which the number of branches in the US increased was 2011, when there were more than 85,000 across the US, according to FDIC data.

Since then, the number has steadily declined to 70,000, with closures increasing during the pandemic.

But while banks have been aggressively closing their branches, credit unions appear to have been bucking the trend.

The number of credit union branches has increased over the past decade, according to an analysis by DailyMail.com.

About 4,800 credit unions now serve 135 million Americans and operate about 20,700 branches nationwide, or 500 more than there were in 2023.

Fed up Americans are fleeing big banks in favor of credit unions after growing tired of low interest rates and declining branch numbers.

An example is Anita Kennedy, 69 years old. In the early 1960s, when she was just six years old, she opened a savings account at Bank of America as part of a school program that encouraged children to save.

She stayed with the bank for more than 60 years, but last month, exhausted by predatory fees, terrible customer service and incessant branch closures, she moved all of her accounts to a local credit union.

“I don’t regret it at all,” he said. “It’s nicer: a human being answers the phone, not a computer, and seems genuinely willing to help solve problems.”

Citibank did not report any branch closures to its regulator, but requested to close three last month: two in New York and one in San Francisco.