Datastream

Why Branch Banking is Dying in America

Published

12 months ago

February 9, 2021

Aran Ali

the end of branch banking

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The Briefing

In the last decade, 27,943 bank branches have closed in the U.S.
The increasing prominence of mobile and digital banking is leading to lighter demand for in-person banking services

Branch Banking Is Dying

The 2008-09 financial crisis was triggered by reckless banking practices that dominoed into the global economic system.

Though the world has since recovered and moved on from the crash, the banking system that ignited such damage has in some ways never been the same.

Take U.S. branch bank net openings, which is undergoing a notable trend reversal. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), for 11 years and counting, the number of U.S. bank branch closings has exceeded the number of branch openings.

Year	Openings	Closings	Net
2020	1,251	2,788	-1,537
2019	1,460	3,090	-1,630
2018	1,563	3,134	-1,571
2017	1,065	2,986	-1,921
2016	1,084	2,826	-1,742
2015	1,209	2,689	-1,480
2014	1,351	2,996	-1,645
2013	1,470	2,500	-1,030
2012	1,623	2,570	-947
2011	1,901	2,364	-463
2010	1,897	2,892	-995
2009	3,457	2,877	+580
2008	3,562	2,300	+1,262
2007	5,168	2,024	+3,144
2006	3,759	1,609	+2,150
2005	3,947	2,026	+1,921
2004	4,095	2,217	+1,878
2003	3,404	2,271	+1,133
2002	2,556	2,469	+87
2001	3,193	2,982	+211
2000	3,274	3,826	-552

There are fewer banks in America with every passing year—in 2020 alone, a deficit of 1,537 branches was recorded, almost 2% of the roughly 85,000 branches in the country.

Branching Towards Digital

Unsurprisingly, the fall in branch banking coincides with the adoption of digital activity in the banking space. And this is especially true for younger, tech-savvy generations.

Undoubtedly, convenience is a big factor, as now nearly 50% of traditional branch banking activity can be conducted online. As a result, mobile banking activity occurs most frequently on one’s couch or bed.

The Good Ol’ Days

The decline in the number of branch banks also reflects the overall downturn of the broader banking industry. In that, the industry faces a slew of challenges including:

1. Contracting net interest margins
Net interest margins are the difference between the interest income generated for financial institutions and the amount they pay to lenders.

2. Fintech industry disruption
Fintech is bridging the gap between finance and digitization, sleek modern technologies enable firms to optimize financial services and the customer experience.

3. More stringent reserve ratio regulations
Reserve ratios are a portion of reserves that a financial institution must hold onto rather than invest or lend.

Investors are fleeing to other avenues as is evident in the stock price performance of the big U.S. banks. As a result, underperformance has been a common theme in the last decade.

	Number of U.S. Branches	Stock Price Performance (Jan 2011 - Jan 2021)	Change Relative to S&P 500
JPMorgan Chase	5,016	208%	+17%
S&P 500		191%
Bank of America	4,265	116%	-75%
U.S. Bancorp	3,067	76%	-115%
Citigroup	704	25%	-160%
Wells Fargo	5,195	-2%	-193%

What Lies Ahead

Yet, despite the progress towards digital banking, the U.S. is still a laggard. For instance, large cohorts of Americans still use cash as a frequent transaction method, while the country’s mobile payment penetration rates are lower than most developed nations.

As a percentage of smartphone users, 29% of Americans have adopted mobile payments. A tepid figure relative to Denmark at 41%, and India at 37%.

America’s fierce economic rival, China, has a whopping 81% of smartphone users that have adopted mobile payments. That’s 801 million people, compared to America’s 69 million. Adjusting for population disparities, China still has 2.7x more mobile payment users.

If the U.S. follows on the path of other more fintech savvy countries, visiting a bank branch and using physical cash may become as increasingly antiquated as writing a check is today.

Where does this data come from?

Source: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Notes: This data was updated last on January 8, 2021

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Datastream

Seeing Red: Is the Heydey of Pandemic Stocks Over?

Worries over post-COVID demand and rising interest rates have fueled a market selloff, with pandemic stocks hit particularly hard.

Published

31 mins ago

January 21, 2022

Jenna Ross

The Briefing

Global equities are in a downward spiral, and experienced their worst week in more than a year.
Worries about slowing post-COVID demand and rising rates fueled the selloff.
Pandemic stocks were some of the hardest hit, with Shopify and Netflix dropping 35.3% and 33.5% respectively.

Seeing Red: Is the Heydey of Pandemic Stocks Over?

The stock market, and the stocks that flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, are off to a rough start in 2022. If you’ve been watching your investment accounts, chances are you’ve been seeing a lot of red. Shaken by the uncertainty of a pandemic recovery and future interest rate hikes, investors have been selling off their stocks.

This market selloff—which occurs when investors sell a large volume of securities in a short period of time, leading to a rapid decline in price—has investors concerned. In fact, search interest for the term “selloff” recently reached peak interest of 100.

Which stocks were the hardest hit, and how much are their prices down so far this year?

The Lackluster Returns of Pandemic Stocks

Pandemic stocks and tech-centric companies have suffered the most. Here’s a closer look at the year-to-date price returns for select stocks.

Company	Year-to-Date Price Return
Shopify	-35.3%
Roblox	-30.2%
Block	-28.0%
Moderna	-31.9%
Zoom	-19.9%
Netflix	-33.5%
Snapchat	-31.1%
Peloton	-23.1%
Coinbase	-23.5%
DocuSign	-26.0%
Amazon	-16.3%
Robinhood	-29.6%

Price returns are in U.S. dollars based on data from January 3, 2022 to January 21, 2022.

Netflix fueled the selloff after it reported disappointing subscriber growth. The company added 8.28 million subscribers in the fourth quarter, which is less than the 8.5 million it added in the fourth quarter of 2020. It also projects to have slower year-over-year subscriber growth in the near term, citing competition from other streaming companies.

Meanwhile, Coinbase stock lost nearly a quarter of its value so far this year. As the price of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have plummeted, investors worry Coinbase will see lower trading volume and therefore lower fees.

The contagion also spread to other pandemic stocks, such as Zoom and DocuSign, as investors began to doubt the staying power of stay-at-home stocks.

Following the Herd

While investor exuberance drove many of these stocks up last year, 2022 is beginning to paint a different picture.

Investors are worried that rising rates will negatively impact high-growth stocks, because it means it’s more expensive to borrow money. Not only that, but they also may see Netflix’s growth as harbinger of things to come for other pandemic stocks.

The psychology of the market cycle also plays a role—amid these fears, investors have adopted a herd mentality and begun selling their shares in droves.

Where does this data come from?

Source: Google Finance

Datastream

How People Around the World Feel About Their Economic Prospects

In many of the world’s largest economies, including the U.S., Germany, and China, optimism around economic prospects sits at an all-time low.

Published

1 day ago

January 20, 2022

Nick Routley

economic prospects of people around the world

The Briefing

Economic prospects are at an all-time low in nine countries, including the U.S., Canada, Germany, Japan, and China
China and the U.S. experienced the biggest year-over-year drops, at -8 p.p. and -6 p.p., respectively

How Countries Feel About Their Economic Prospects

Each year, the Edelman Trust Barometer report helps gauge the level of trust people place in various systems of power.

The report is also a useful tool to gauge the general mood in countries around the world—and when it comes to how people in developed economies feel about the near future, there’s a very clear answer: pessimistic. In fact, optimism about respondents’ economic prospects fell in the majority of countries surveyed.

Here’s a full look how many respondents in 28 countries feel they and their families will be doing better over the next five years. Or, put more simply, what percentage of people are optimistic about their economic circumstances?

Country	% who are optimistic	All-time low?	Change from 2021 (p.p.)
🇯🇵 Japan	15%	✅	-1
🇫🇷 France	18%	✅	-1
🇩🇪 Germany	22%	✅	-2
🇮🇹 Italy	27%	✅	0
🇳🇱 Netherlands	29%	✅	-1
🇬🇧 UK	30%		+2
🇷🇺 Russia	31%		+1
🇨🇦 Canada	34%	✅	-1
🇪🇸 Spain	36%		+1
🇰🇷 South Korea	39%		+6
🇺🇸 U.S.	40%	✅	-6
🇦🇺 Australia	41%		-2
🇮🇪 Ireland	42%		-1
🇸🇬 Singapore	43%		-1
🌐 Global	51%		0
🇲🇾 Malaysia	55%	✅	0
🇦🇷 Argentina	60%		-2
🇹🇭 Thailand	60%		-2
🇨🇳 China	64%	✅	-8
🇿🇦 South Africa	66%		-2
🇲🇽 Mexico	68%		-1
🇧🇷 Brazil	73%		0
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	73%		0
🇦🇪 UAE	78%		+6
🇮🇳 India	80%		0
🇮🇩 Indonesia	81%		+11
🇨🇴 Colombia	83%		-1
🇳🇬 Nigeria	87%		n/a
🇰🇪 Kenya	91%		-2

Interestingly, nine countries (those with checkmarks above) are polling at all-time lows for economic optimism in survey history.

Whose Glass is Half Empty?

Japanese respondents were the most pessimistic, with only 15% seeing positive economic prospects in the near term. Only 18% of French respondents were economically optimistic.

While most developed economies were slightly more optimistic than Japan and France, all are still well below the global average.

As tensions between China and the U.S. continue to heat up in 2022, there is one thing that can unite citizens in the two countries—a general feeling that economic prospects are souring. As the U.S. heads into midterm elections and China’s 20th National Party Congress takes place, leaders in both countries will surely have the economy on their minds.

Whose Glass is Half Full?

Of course, the mood isn’t all doom and gloom everywhere. The United Arab Emirates saw a 6 percentage point (p.p.) jump in their population’s economic prospects.

Indonesia saw an 11 p.p. increase, and in big developing economies like Brazil and India, the general level of optimism is still quite high.

In some ways, it’s no surprise that people in developing economies are more optimistic about their economic prospects. Living standards are generally rising in many of these countries, and more opportunities open up as the economy grows. Even in the most pessimistic African country surveyed, South Africa, the majority of people still see improving circumstances in their near future. In Kenya and Nigeria, an overwhelming majority are optimistic.

Diverging Outcomes

One major prediction that experts agreed on for the year ahead is that economic outcomes will begin to diverge between countries with differing levels of vaccine access.

While this doesn’t seem to have affected attitudes towards economic optimism yet, it remains to be seen how this will play out as the year progresses.

Where does this data come from?

Source: 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer

Data notes: This data is derived from Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer survey, which includes 30,000+ respondents in countries around the world.