Strategic planning

The Minneapolis company says the majority of branches earmarked for closing have already been shuttered for months due to the pandemic. Some of the savings will be plowed back into digital expansion.

CEO Michael Corbat and CFO Mark Mason dodged questions from analysts about how much time and money Citigroup expects to spend to address recent enforcement actions.

Goldman Sachs Group shuffled its business lines and announced a raft of management changes, carving out new divisions aligned with a strategy pivot unveiled earlier this year.

Several companies said this week they’re slashing expenses as the economy limps along. Others would prefer to keep investing in new technologies and hold off on moves like branch closings to better gauge which changes in consumer behavior will stick.

“What COVID has done for us is it has showed us where to prioritize investments,” William Demchak said at an industry conference in discussing the Pittsburgh company's plans to speed up the shift to digital banking.

The reductions will affect less than 1% of Citi's global workforce, and with recent hiring the overall headcount probably won’t decline, the company said.

When the coronavirus pandemic forced teachers and students to move classroom learning online this year, school districts and educators suddenly faced a raft of challenges around handling new expenses for tools needed for cyber education.

The industry's return on average assets has already dropped substantially and there are predictions that could get even worse. Many institutions will have to deal with elevated provisions for loan losses and expense management to survive.

With the coronavirus pandemic intensifying and hopes for a quick economic recovery fading, banks large and small are reducing headcounts, shuttering branches, shedding office space and generally trying to trim expenses wherever they can.

The North Carolina regional created by the merger of BB&T and SunTrust is saving money by shedding office space and reworking vendor contracts, but it was forced to put its systems integration on hold for up to a year to prioritize tech upgrades tied to the pandemic.

The Wisconsin banking company recently agreed to subscribe to five solar gardens to trim power costs at 39 branches. The move, part of a broader sustainability push, also could benefit rural communities, Associated said.

The company said it had cut 20 positions and found a way to shed 35,000 square feet of office space by the end of 2020.

The Delaware company said it received $22 million in net proceeds after selling 360,000 class B shares.

Some institutions may want to consider self-insurance to lower expenses as the coronavirus cuts into earnings.

Credit unions are once again opposing language in draft legislation of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act that would allow banks to rent space on military bases for free.

The company is partnering with Sensibill, a fintech whose technology turns photos of receipts into text and helps people track and manage their expenses.

Past is not prologue, and a successful strategy for becoming a top-performing bank in 2020 is very different from what it might have been just six months ago.

Fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is pressuring banks that have relied on expansion efforts and fee income to produce outsize investor returns.

Faced with limited growth opportunities and potentially mounting loan losses, banks are getting aggressive — and creative — to boost profits.

Expenses soared in the rush to deploy emergency loans to small businesses, and now Bank of America may need to delay some investments if it hopes to meet cost targets, CEO Brian Moynihan said.