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Epic Economist, 10/24/23
"Banks Close 100s Of Branches And Layoff 1000s
Of Workers As They Brace For Financial Meltdown"
"U.S. banks are closing a large number of branches right now, - another ominous sign of the financial meltdown that has started to unfold. They are also laying off workers by the thousands in preparation for the chaos that is ahead, according to new reports. Record-high interest rates and turmoil in the real estate industry are adding an enormous amount of pressure on the nation’s biggest financial institutions. Even big names like JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs have reported major losses in recent months, and they know a much bigger crisis is approaching. That’s why banks are getting very tight with their money, reducing their brick-and-mortar footprint, and slashing their headcounts as they fear mass withdrawals and more failures could happen in the coming winter. Experts say these are the very early stages of another global financial crisis, and many fully expect conditions to get even worse from now on.
In the first seven days of October, banks closed a whopping 54 branches, leaving an increasing number of Americans without access to basic financial services. Bank of America shuttered 21 branches in the first week of October, according to a bulletin published by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) on Friday. Similarly, Wells Fargo eliminated 15 branches, while U.S. Bank and JPMorgan Chase reported closing nine and three respectively.
More recently, Santander and City Bank closed nearly 20 branches each. Over the past twelve months, U.S. banks shut down over 3,100 locations, according to S&P Global. From 2021 to 2022, they closed a net 2,927 branches, which represented a 38% increase from the prior year. Moreover, in the open branches, there are fewer staff members around as well. A fresh CNBC report exposed that the most popular banks in America are laying off staggering numbers of workers – and some of the deepest cuts are yet to come. The six largest U.S. banks have cut a combined 20,000 positions so far this year, according to company filings. “Banks are cutting costs where they can because things are really uncertain next year,” Chris Marinac, research director at Janney Montgomery Scott, noted.
The sharpest cuts have happened at Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, institutions that are wrestling with revenue declines in key businesses. They each have laid off roughly 5% of their workforce in the past 10 months. At Wells Fargo, job cuts started to rise after the bank announced a strategic shift away from the mortgage business. And although the bank cut 50,000 employees in the past three years as part of CEO Charlie Scharf’s cost-cutting plan, the firm isn’t done shrinking headcount, executives said Friday. There are “very few parts of the company” that will be spared from cuts, said CFO Mike Santomassimo.
All of these developments indicate that the banking industry is in serious trouble. And economic turbulence is likely to aggravate matters in the financial world during the final months of the year. U.S. banks have a lot to worry about right now, and we should definitely enjoy the relative stability that has prevented markets and institutions from collapsing up until this point. The truth is that conditions are getting increasingly unsustainable, and things will become extremely chaotic far sooner than most people imagine."
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