When was the last time you walked into a brick-and-mortar financial institution? In an age of mobile applications, digital banking, and a wide array of other technologies to make banking easy, it seems banks are closing down these outlets across the country.
Citing U.S. government data, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the number of bank branches tumbled by more than 1,700 in the 12 months ending June 2017. This represents the biggest decrease in the nation’s history.
Amid profits in the wake of closures, banks don’t have much of an incentive to invest in physical branches anymore. Plus, walk-up customer traffic has crumbled, while financial institutions are relocating to rural areas.
The newspaper writes:
“That would add to the thousands of locations closed following the financial crisis, and is the longest stretch of closures since the Great Depression.
The closures have helped the bank save on occupancy and employee costs, bringing down overall expenses. The lower expense levels have bolstered bank profit.”
By the time you have grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, you likely will not see too many branches. They will likely ask you: what the heck are those?
The closings of bank branches is not a big surprise to me. I use on line banking and go to my local branch about 5 times per years now. This is not news, about 10 branches have closed in my town of 60,000 in the past few years. It does not mean the banks are in trouble, they are just being smart.
Cashless society can’t be far off. Crypto?
No cashless society, too much to be made in black market trade worldwide, not going to happen, no matter how much the Banksters want it.