Last year, the number of bank stores decreased by 304… The largest decline since 2017

The decline in the number of domestic bank stores is accelerating.

According to the’Domestic Bank Store Operation Status’ released by the Financial Supervisory Service on the 7th, the number of bank stores (branches + branch offices) as of the end of 2020 was 6,405, a decrease of 304 from a year ago. This is the biggest decline since 2017, when 312 fell. 23 in 2018 and 57 in 2019.

It is analyzed due to the influence of the expansion of non-face-to-face transactions such as mobile banking and the reorganization of duplicate stores.

Last year, there were 30 newly opened stores and 334 stores closed.

By bank, the number of closed stores was 83 in the nation, 74 in Hana, 58 in Korea, 22 in Busan, and 21 in Shinhan.

The decline in stores was mainly in large cities. The number decreased by 251 in the metropolitan area and metropolitan cities, accounting for 82.6% of the total reduction.

In addition, the reduction in commercial banks (238) accounted for 78.3% of the total, followed by local banks (44) and special banks (22).

Earlier, the Financial Supervisory Service announced in February that it would strengthen market discipline by expanding disclosures on the status of banking stores. The Financial Supervisory Service decided to regularly announce the status of bank stores every half year, and this is the first attempt.

The Financial Supervisory Service said, “We will guide you to faithfully implement the’joint procedure related to closing bank stores’ so that financial consumer discomfort is not caused by the decrease of stores.

The joint procedure, which is the self-regulation of the banking sector, contains content such as that before the bank closes its stores, it must conduct an impact assessment involving external experts and operate alternative means such as mobile stores according to the results.

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