Region is an outlier in banking: it's adding branches

Tampa, it seems, has something else in common with Austin, Charlotte and Nashville, other than competing for best midsize city to move your business to in the South or Sunbelt. All four of those cities are also on a rare list of places that added bank branches — albeit in tiny numbers — in 2020, according to a new report from real estate giant JLL.

In total, 10 of 42 major markets JLL analyzed posted a gain in bank branch openings, the report shows.  Dallas, Denver and Atlanta are among those with gains. Charlotte, with 10 new branches, leads the nation, up 2% over 2019 to now 516 total branches. (Charlotte topping the list makes sense, given it’s the longtime headquarters of Bank of America and the new headquarters of the bank that came out of the SunTrust-BB&T merger, Truist.) Tampa gained five branches in 2020, the report shows, up 0.7%. The city now has 675 branches.

Cities that led the way in shuttered branches include Hartford, down -5.2%; Sacramento, California, down 4.7%; and Chicago, down 4.5%. All 42 markets combined lost 618 branches, down 1.6%.

The decline in bank branches is a long-running trend, a result of the rise in digital banking and changing customer habits. But less branches doesn’t mean less banking: overall bank deposits rose 20% in 2020, the fastest pace on record going back to 1975, the report states. In addition, mobile banking user and adoption grew 65.% in 2020, JLL found, an increase likely accelerated by the pandemic.