A bit or two on branch closures and layoffs… So, LAS (Legacy Asset Servicing) is in a meltdown mode, nothing unpredictable here, they grew too quickly anyway, and this is expected. I am sorry for our folks who left or will be leaving but we went from 42,000 folks in this division (in 2012) to less than 15,000 currently (February 2015). There is very little we can do about this now. Now, branch closings, that’s a completely different story. While our customer base is fairly stable, there is less need for our branch services as more folks are using phones to manage bank accounts, so you will see many branches close and also call center headcount will be impacted as we are getting less calls and handling more stuff through mobile and web. So, if you are in IT you should (or most of you guys should) feel pretty good about next few years, there will be a ton of work and no layoffs for most of you. So, branch closures… We had ton of them in 2014 and 2015/2016 will be even worse. We have around 5,000 branches and we closed 148 (this is around 3%). 2013 was even worse with 300 branches closing. Overall, since 2008 we lost over 1,000 branches. So, branch closures are here and will stay with us for a while (should we call it ‘rightsizing’ – I hate that word). The closures will continue and will affect all banks, not only us, it just happen that we are so big that everyone notices if a branch closes. That’s my 2 cents here – good luck and Godspeed to all of us…
2 replies (most recent on top)
Are we planning to close any branches here in California. It's my understanding that our California branches are doing very good and that there should be no closure issues. At the same time, I am sure there might be a few branches who are not performing and they may be on the chopping block. So if you have the list of branches that will close in 2015 please let me know by posting the list here.
Hang in there, this will all go away at some point