304 bank branches decreased last year… The biggest since ’17

Input 2021.04.07 12:00

Last year, the number of domestic bank branches decreased by 304. The largest decline since the number of 312 units in 2017 decreased. There were 334 bank stores that were closed, but only 30 were newly opened.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service on the 7th, the number of domestic bank stores was 6405 at the end of last year, a decrease of 304 from the end of the previous year (6709). The Financial Supervisory Service explained that the number of bank stores has declined the most since 2017 as non-face-to-face transactions such as mobile banking have expanded and the movement to close duplicate stores has spread. The number of bank stores decreased from 180 in 2016 → 312 in 2017 → 23 in 2018 → 57 in 2019 → 304 in 2020.

There were 30 new stores and 334 closed stores. Kookmin Bank had the most closed stores at 83, followed by Hana Bank at 74, Woori Bank at 58, Busan Bank at 22, and Shinhan Bank at 21.

As a result of the decrease in the number of stores, Kookmin Bank had the largest number of commercial banks at the end of last year with 972, followed by Shinhan at 859, Woori at 821, Hana at 651, SC at 200 and Citi at 43. The number of local banks was 235 in Daegu, 232 in Busan, 146 in Gwangju, 146 in Gyeongnam, 97 in Jeonbuk, and 33 in Jeju.

The decline in commercial banks (238) accounted for the majority at 78.3%, with 44 local banks and 22 specialty banks. By region, the reduction in metropolitan areas such as the metropolitan area and metropolitan cities was 251, accounting for 82.6%, and 53 in non-metropolitan areas.

The Financial Supervisory Service is planning to announce the status of banking branch stores once every six months so as not to cause inconvenience to financial consumers due to the decrease in stores. In addition, the policy is to guide the faithful implementation of joint procedures related to the closure of bank stores.