Experts expect banks to start pruning their branches

That bank branch on the corner may not be there much longer.

As technology transforms banking, as it has so many sectors, there could be a dramatic decline in the industry’s outposts, experts say.

Antony Jenkins, Barclays ex-CEO, laid it out starkly in a speech last fall: The global industry, under pressure to meet demands for automation and cheaper services, will slash employment and branches by 20 percent to 50 percent over the next decade.

“And that’s not just the opinion of one well-informed man. Analysts with Citi agree with Jenkins’ forecast. And a separate survey from Accenture, the management consulting company, shows why: Shifting consumer behavior.

“We believe the consumer banks in the U.S. and Europe are at a tipping point,” wrote the authors of a Citi report, which was published this spring. The number of bank branches in the United States could shrink by a third within the decade, they predict.

— Washington Post

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