US Bank announces it will shut 19 branches in just one week – is YOUR branch affected?

The American bank applied this month to close 19 branches in one week.

It was by far the worst offender among the five banks that informed their regulator between March 3 and 9 of plans to close a total of 25 branches.

Citizens Bank and KeyBank also said they would each close two branches — three of which were in Pennsylvania. Axiom and Bank of Hillsboro said they would close one each.

Many of the U.S. bank closures occurred in rural areas: five in Idaho and three in Missouri. The rest were in Arkansas, California, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Wisconsin.

“The U.S. Bank footprint includes the mountain states in the Midwest and West, with many smaller cities and wide open space,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.

Pictured is a location of a U.S. bank in St. Maries, Idaho, that is on the verge of closing, according to a recent bulletin filed by the bank’s federal regulator

Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate

He added that even in rural areas, banking services are increasingly shifting online. Cutting branches can save banks millions every year.

“Even among customers outside major metropolitan areas, routine transactions continue to migrate outside the branch and are done digitally,” he said.

The week before was unusually light in terms of branch closures.

Bank of America told its regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Coin (OCC), that it would close only three.

Steven Reider, the founder of Bancography, an Alabama consulting firm that advises banks on branch planning, said retail banking is undergoing “a transformation from rural to urban.”

Banks are consolidating around cities and putting more emphasis on completely dominating those markets.

For example, Chase is forcibly moving into Kansas City, Fifth Third is making similar moves into Charlotte, and PNC is targeting Austin.

So far in 2024, Bank of America and US Bank have been among the most aggressively cutting sectors.

In the first two months of the year, an analysis by DailyMail.com found that banks applied to close 222 branches.

Bank of America, US Bank and Citizens together accounted for almost half of that.

The average freestanding bank branch costs about $2.6 million per year. So closing them and encouraging customers to go online could lead to big savings.

Below are the last two full weeks of closures for which the OCC has figures: February 25 through March 2 and March 3 through 9.

For branch closures reported for the remainder of this year, click here.