In its shrunken branch network, Commerzbank will in future rely on digital advice centers to support customers. The bank is opening three such centers, each with 50 to 100 employees, this Tuesday (October 19): in Berlin, in Düsseldorf and in Quickborn in Schleswig-Holstein – the headquarters of its online brand Comdirect.
How many such centers there should be in total if the concept proves its worth has not yet been finally decided, said a spokesman for the Frankfurt money house on request. After the plans became known in early September, the “Börsen-Zeitung” reported that there could be a good dozen. The newspaper named the following possible additional locations for Commerzbank’s digital advice centers: Frankfurt / Main, Hanover, Mannheim, Leipzig / Halle, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Nuremberg, Munich, Stuttgart, Dresden and Duisburg.
The money house, which had long stuck to its comparatively close-knit network of branches, is radically changing its direction under the CEO Manfred Knof, who has been in office since January. By the end of 2024, the number of full-time positions across the group is to be reduced from around 39,500 to 32,000. The branch network in Germany will be almost halved from 790 to 450 locations. Commerzbank plans to close 240 branches in Germany this year, and the domestic branch reduction is to be completed in 2022.
“There are areas in Germany where we are simply no longer there,” said Arno Walter, Commerzbank Board Member for Wealth Management & Corporate Customers, at a bank conference at the beginning of October. “But we still have a pretty good range.” The long-time boss of the Comdirect assured: “We want to offer advice in all branches.”
A number of banks have already thinned out their branch network considerably. Because more and more customers are using digital channels for banking. In a survey published at the beginning of October on behalf of the Association of German Banks (BdB), 46 percent of those questioned said they went to the branch of their main bank at least once a month. But only just under a quarter say they have personal contact at the bank counter.
The branch has been losing importance for years: while according to the BdB in 2014, 27 percent of people said they visit their bank once a week, only 13 percent said so in the survey this year. At the same time, according to the survey, six out of ten adults in Germany use online banking or mobile access, for example via a smartphone, to do at least some of their banking transactions.
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