Branch banking

Front-line employees yearn to be told they still have a critical role to play, as more customers are seeking in-person help amid the pandemic.

The Indiana company said the move reflects a need to cut costs and customers' increased preference for digital channels.

The Delaware company would remove a rival, gain scale in affluent Philadelphia suburbs and accelerate its transformation from a branch-heavy lender to a digital-first bank with the $976 million acquisition.

Toronto-Dominion Bank said it will close 82 bank branches in the U.S. as part of a “store optimization” in its American unit, where net income dropped in the fiscal first quarter.

As self-service banking offerings continue to gain ground, financial firms must evolve their brick-and-mortar facilities in order to better serve consumers.

A severe cold snap in the state has tested financial institutions unaccustomed to such weather-related disruption.

Comerica, Regions and Frost Bank closed hundreds of branches statewide while others ran them at reduced capacity or on power generators to help ease the strain on the state’s overwhelmed power grid.

The North Carolina-based credit union, which purchased the vacant bank branch last summer, serves some members across the state line but has not had a brick-and-mortar presence there until now.

Canada’s fourth-largest bank is pressing ahead with big technology investments to cut costs and try to generate more revenue from existing customers, said Erminia Johannson, BMO’s head of personal and business banking for the U.S. and Canada.

The credit union expects to open at least eight branches across the country in the months ahead, about half of what it normally adds to its brick-and-mortar network in an average year.