Scott Florini
Senior Vice President of Strategy
Financial
Retail
Hospitality
Workplaces
Prototypes
Rollouts
Renovations
JOIN THE FUTURE OF BRANCH BANKING WITH SOME OF THE INDUSTRY’S LARGEST BRANDS
In February 2024, PNC Financial Services Group bank made headlines in the financial industry when they announced their new $1 billion strategy to “[open] more than 100 new branches in certain existing markets and [renovate] more than 1,200 locations nationwide” in an interview with The Financial Brand.
That’s right: not 100 new branches in 100 new markets, but 100 new branches within their existing markets. PNC’s EVP and head of branch banking, Jeff Martinez, sees this as an opportunity to capitalize in “places where we have been
PLAN FOR GROWTH BY LOOKING INWARD INSTEAD OF OUTWARD
SHOULD YOU CONSIDER MARKET REINVESTMENT, TOO?
Market reinvestment at this scale isn’t something we’ve seen much of before, but we think PNC’s reasoning is solid — and something you should also consider for your branches. Why? Because it’s expensive to go into new markets; it often means starting with zero materials and zero people.
PNC’s choice to open or renovate locations in their existing market instead of opening up new locations in new markets tells us they think, “We’re not performing well enough where we are, and we think we can do better.”
Sometimes doing better looks like closing underperforming branches (by the end of 2023, “2.6 [PNC] branches closed for every one that was opened”). Maybe PNC realized that many of their existing locations had too much overlap with other competitors in the area. Or perhaps they realized that a location was underperforming because it was in the wrong zip code or on the wrong street.