Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Other US Lenders Shut Down 113 Bank Branches in Just Six Weeks: Report

Some of America’s biggest banks are terminating physical branches as the new year kicks off.

Between Thanksgiving 2024 and January 11 – about six weeks – Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, US Bank and PNC contributed to a total of 113 planned branch closures, the Daily Mail reports.

UMB Bank, a regional institution that recently executed a $2 billion acquisition of a smaller bank, closed 28 branches, although UMB disputed the details of the Daily Mail’s findings.

Bank of America closed nine branches while Flagstar, a bank with over $114 billion in assets, closed 15. US Bank and JPMorgan Chase each closed six branches in the same timeframe.

Bank of America closed 132 branches in 2024, while US Bank shut down 101, Wells Fargo 92, and Chase 90.

More physical branches were shut down in California than in any other state.

Using data sourced from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), credit-building firm Self Financial recently reported that the number of bank branches in the US peaked in 2012 after steadily rising since at least 1935.

And within about 16 years, Self Financial says bank branches will become completely extinct.

“Based on the data from 2012 to 2022, using a polynomial regression model, the data predicts that if bank branches continued to decline at the accelerated rate they have been in the last decade, there could be no bank branches left by 2041.”

Based on current trends, the data suggests that some states will go branchless before others, with New England, Connecticut, Maine and Vermont predicted to have zero physical bank branches by 2031.

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