Wells Fargo, Chase and Bank of America among US banks to shutter 79 branches in just over a month – is YOURS affected?

US banks closed 79 branches in just six weeks as the sector increasingly offered services online.

The figures suggest that the elimination of expensive physical locations will continue, with the total number of closures to date exceeding 400 by 2024.

California is hardest hit by the recent closures with 20 shutterings recorded between April 20 and June 1.

JP Morgan led the charge, closing 18 locations under its Chase retail arm. Wells Fargo was next with 17, including eight in the past week.

Bank of America has filed to close 16 locations in states across the country, including California, Florida and New Jersey.

BankUnited, BMO Bank, Citizens Bank and Inwood NB were also among those announcing closures.

The closures, reported to the federal regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Coin (OCC), mean customers in the area will either have to drive further to another branch or turn to online banking for the majority of services.

Each week, banks must notify the OCC of branch openings and closings. Banks said they would open 57 of the past six weekly reports. The openings and closings could then take place in the coming weeks or months.

Banks have so far announced the closure of more than 400 branches by 2024 – see the boxes below for the latest and links to all the others from this year.

The last year the number of branches in the US increased was 2011, when there were more than 85,000 in the US, according to FDIC data. Since then, the number has steadily declined to around 70,000.

Most national banks such as US Bank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo have become increasingly confident that online banking can meet the needs of most customers.

Closures can lead to significant savings. According to Bancography, an Alabama-based consulting firm that advises banks, the average freestanding branch costs $2.6 million per year.

Steven Reider, the founder and president of Bancography, previously told DailyMail.com that “banks are willing to close a branch that doesn’t overlap with any other branch, on the gamble that customers are willing to go a little further.”

“I think Bank of America has leaned on that more than the other big banks,” he added.

Reider also noted that Bank of America’s merger history has led to it acquiring branches in rural areas as the industry undergoes “a rural-to-urban transformation.”

“Every census since 1910 has shown that a greater share of Americans live in urban areas than the previous census, so as we become an increasingly urbanized nation, demand in these traditional rural markets is only fading,” he said.

Ultimately, banks want to consolidate the markets they’re already in, and that means placing more emphasis on dominance in a handful of cities.

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

Although bank branch closures began to increase throughout the 2010s, they were exacerbated by the pandemic, which kept people at home.

More than 1,500 bank branches closed for good in 2023, with California and the Midwest hardest hit.