Weather 
You can’t take that to the bank.
Citizens Bank has just announced that 100 to 120 in-store branches will be closing down. The Providence, Rhode Island-based parent company, Citizens Financial Group, reported the shutters in a recent earnings call, confirming the move was part of a 10-year plan.
Bruce Van Saun, Chairman and CEO of Citizens Financial Group, said in the call that the branches getting the boot will be in supermarkets like ones found in Acme, Giant and ShopRite stores. The bank will also be replacing many of those locations with standalone full-service spots.
“In the short run, we’re doing a lot of planning about kind of extricating ourselves out of a lot of the supermarket branches that we have and how do we set up standalone branches, full-service branches, nearby that we can migrate the customers to … and be in a much better position to grow and add customers,” Van Saun said on the call.
While the major bank aims to close up to 120 in-store branches, the company aims to open 50 to 60 stand-alone locations. The new spots will cater to more personal banking with executives claiming the focus will be on “small business and wealth.”
According to the Citizens Financial Group’s earnings presentation, the new branches plan to replace some larger locations with smaller 2,000- to 3,000-square-foot branches. These would be focused more on advisory services where clients can speak directly with bankers on a personal level.
“This type of careful investment in physical locations and in people, if executed well, should create a nice lift in the deposit trajectory without taking on the risk and significant capital expenditure of opening a whole bunch of de novos outside of the footprint,” Van Saun said on the call.
The new strategy includes in-store branches with virtual assistant kiosks in select markets like California, Florida, New York and especially Philadelphia. This makes sense, as Citizens has ranked number five in deposit market share in the Philadelphia region for many years.
“When you unpack the various different things that we’re doing to accelerate long-term outsized retail deposit growth… really, this is about repositioning them for strength and even further growth,” Citizens President Brendan Coughlin said during the call.
“But it actually could mean slightly less branches because we have this glut of in-store branches that we could thin over time and replace with even more powerful branches,” Coughlin added, assuring investors that the closures were strategic.
The Post reached out to Citizens for a list of locations getting the boot and when but has not heard back.
As of today, Citizens Bank has approximately 1,000 branches across 14 states.
The move out of supermarkets is not new, other major players have recently pulled the plug or scaled back like PNC Bank, and U.S. Bank. Companies attribute the closures to shifting consumer demands as mobile apps and digital platforms grow.
Just last year, TD Bank closed down over 50 locations across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. The bank cited a push toward “tech-forward digital banking capabilities and personalized advice-led services.”
