Financial institutions in the US such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America have recently closed some of their stores. Case in point in Brotherly Love City, Philadelphia, where Wells Fargo has closed 17% of its offices since 2020.
For its part, PNC Bank, another important regional bank, closed 15% of its offices in that city. While Bank of America did the same with 5% of its branches.
But this banking crisis is not just a problem in Philadelphia, but this phenomenon has occurred in major North American banks. New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, Washington, D.C., Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, California and Arizona have all seen facilities close to their headquarters.
In what context does the US banking crisis occur?
Analysts and experts on this topic began to worry when two major bankruptcies occurred: Silicon Valley and Signature Bank.
for this reason, Federal government She tried to keep her clients’ savings safe by using the financial tools available to her.
However, the closure of bank headquarters is not a new issue in the country, because banks are in the process of constant reorganization.
In this sense, out of the nearly 8,000 headquarters of large banks in the United States in 2000, there are now 4,194. Therefore, the number of headquarters of large banks in the country has decreased by nearly 50%. This has been confirmed by the Federal Bank Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
Also, according to TheStreet, if the current trend continues in North America, there will be no banking sites to conduct transactions in person within 10 years.
It can be said that several factors influenced the acceleration of these closures in the United States. Among them was the decrease in the number of customers who decided to conduct their basic banking transactions in person.
Likewise, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced people to stay at home and do their transactions digitally, and in addition to declining profits caused by a long period of low interest rates, new digital banks such as Ally Bank and SoFi have emerged.
Amidst all the closing scenario in banking institutions, it is the vulnerable communities that suffer the most negative impact. We are talking about ethnic minorities, rural areas and low-income sectors.
