The Charlotte Observer, January 19, 2022, Truist opened fewer branches post-merger in diverse areas, advocacy group claims
After SunTrust and BB&T combined to form Truist in late 2019, the bank opened fewer branches in low-income and diverse neighborhoods than before the merger, according to a report from the Committee for Better Banks.
The decrease in openings is one example of how a big bank’s shifting branch strategy can negatively impact communities already struggling with access to capital and other financial services, the worker advocacy group said in its report.
“There’s been a lot of attention to where banks close branches but little to where they open branches,” Nick Weiner, co-lead director for the committee, said in a recent interview. “After (SunTrust and BB&T) merged, there was a shift.”
“Where they (open branches) has an impact,” Weiner said. “If there’s a shift away from low income and communities of color… there’s a real cost to these communities.”
Truist isn’t the only bank that’s reevaluating its branch network.
Many of the country’s larger banks are shrinking their number of branches, especially after the COVID pandemic spurred even more customers to adopt digital banking.
“There’s not really a sense of when banks are going to stop closing branches,” said Jason Richardson, director of research at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “How many bank branches do you really need, if you’re a mid-range regional bank with 80 branches right now, and three quarters of your consumers are working online anyway? It’s a question.”
Physical locations remain an important way for some customers to access financial services, Richardson said. He’ll be monitoring the impact of branch changes at Truist and other banks to see if the pandemic impacted closures or openings.
