Bank Office Numbers in the U.S. Outpace Population

Despite the increased use of online and mobile banking, brick-and-mortar offices retain their dominance in the provision of banking services, at least for FDIC-insured institutions.

“FDIC-insured institutions operated 94,725 banking offices as of June 2014, a decline of just 4.8 percent from the all-time high of 99,550 offices in 2009,” said a study by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. released in February.

Office growth has exceeded population growth. “Between 1970 and 2014, the U.S. population grew by over 50 percent, while the number of offices more than doubled,” the report said.

The study identifies four main factors behind the number and distribution of banking offices: population growth, banking crises, legislative changes to branching laws and technological innovation.