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The Hot News in Banking: Bricks and Mortar

Customers prefer branches, so banks are opening 'em like crazy




When Bank of America Corp. (BAC ) opened its first Chicago branch in
January, in the heart of the city's financial district on tony La
Salle Street, the mood was festive. The bank flew in Chief Executive
Kenneth D. Lewis and had Mayor Richard M. Daley cut a ribbon made of
$20 bills.

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Behind the gaiety, this was the first salvo in a retail-banking battle
that will see dozens of new branches open this year in and around the
Windy City. Over the next two years, the Charlotte (N.C.)-based bank
is set to open 50 branches. Seattle-based Washington Mutual Inc. (WM )
also is ready to invade. It plans to open 70 branches this year,
starting in June. Meanwhile, the local market leader, Bank One Corp.
(ONE ), isn't sitting still. After closing more branches than it
opened since 1999, it added 7 in the second half of 2002, it's opening
13 this year, and it has 15 in the works for 2004. "One after another,
banks are falling over themselves making announcements," says Linda
Koch, an executive at Illinois Bankers Assn. "Consumers can walk
across the street if they don't like their bank."

Chicago seems like the epicenter of the branch boom, but new branches
are popping up on street corners and in strip malls across the
country, especially in high-growth Sunbelt states. After nearly a
decade of rarely adding a branch, Charlotte (N.C.)-based Wachovia
Corp. plans to open 90 nationwide this year and next, including 10 in
a major battleground, New York City. Chicago-based Bank One plans 65
this year and more than 100 next year. "We're buying land aggressively
for sites we want to be in," says Liam E. McGee, president of BofA's
consumer banking business, who expects to open at least 350 branches
around the country by the end of next year.

What a reversal from the height of the Internet boom, when big banks
had declared branch banking dead and were aggressively investing in
technology instead. They hoped to herd customers to their new
electronic systems and cut back on expensive bricks and mortar. So
they spent heavily on call centers and Web sites and also opened less
costly minibranches in grocery and discount stores.

For seven years, for example, Bank One discouraged customers from
patronizing its branches by slapping a $3 fee on any transaction
involving a teller. At the same time, it invested $150 million in
WingspanBank.com, its separate, Internet-only bank. Bank of America
had a large presence in Chicago until 1998, when it decided to sell
its 76 branches inside grocery stores. And a rash of bank mergers put
the focus on closing rather than opening branches. "In the mid-1990s,
there was a question mark in the industry about even the need for
branches in the future," says Ben Jenkins, head of retail and
wholesale banking at Wachovia.


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Michal 'Amra' Macierzynski
www.prnews.pl - swiat e-bankowosci