Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citizens and Chase among US banks that filed to shut 18 branches in just one week – is YOURS affected

Wells Fargo filed this month to close eight branches in one week, joining another eight banks that have closed a total of 18 branches.

Meanwhile, Chase continued to defy the industry-wide trend by announcing it would open eight instead.

These were in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, South Carolina and Utah.

Only one other bank said it would open a branch, Wintrust Bank in Chicago. That brought the total number of openings to nine – half the number of planned closures.

Banks therefore continue to close branches much faster than they open them, with a focus on closing rural locations and consolidating around cities.

Chase is an outlier among major banks because the number of branches has steadily increased

Wells Fargo closures between March 10 and 16 reported to its regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Coin (OCC)were spread across Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina and Texas.

Overall, Wells Fargo is a leader when it comes to bank branch closures.

Last year it notified the regulator that it would close 312 branches, more than any other bank in the country. It opened only 22 throughout the year.

It is joined by US Bank, which has already said it will close more than 50 in total this year.

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

The average freestanding bank branch costs about $2.6 million a year, so closing them and encouraging customers to bank online could lead to big savings.

The last time the number of commercial bank branches in the U.S. increased was in 2011, when there were more than 85,000, according to FDIC data.

Since then, the number of physical locations has fallen fairly steadily to approximately 70,000.

This year, Chase said it would open 500 locations in the U.S. over the next three years, and last year it was the only major bank to open more branches than it closed.

Chase opened 195 branches between Jan. 1 and Dec. 22 — nearly six times more than Bank of America, which came in second by filing to open 32 branches.