“Riesa is a very interesting location”

Now the bank has opened again regularly – and has now announced the balance sheet for 2020 in Riesa. And that will be positive in 2020, despite the challenges posed by the corona pandemic. The main focus was on supporting business customers, says Anja Vogler. She heads the local market area of ​​Commerzbank and thus, in addition to the Riesa branch, also those in Meißen and Radebeul. Because some of the people affected were left with nothing from one day to the next, Commerzbank provided application options for loans from the KfW development bank within 48 hours. “That has never happened at this speed.” Nationwide, Commerzbank provided 7.7 billion KfW Corona loans, in Saxony – excluding Leipzig – it was 68 million euros.

There are no Riesa figures on this, but on the number of business customers: Last year this rose by eleven to 680 customers. The number of customers also increased overall in the Corona year – by 150 net to a total of 6,950 customers. “This is a very good size for a location like this away from the big cities,” says Anja Vogler. “We are really busy.”

Only a small part of the customers would come to the branch to pick up their account statements: The trend towards digitization was accelerated again by Corona. More and more customers would use their smartphones for banking. “Even 80-year-old men come to us with cell phones in hand and want us to show them how they can use it to do their banking,” says the division manager. In the region, the number of banking app users has increased by 38 percent – to around 1,000 customers in the region. It is now also possible at Commerzbank to buy or sell securities via smartphone.

Houses with gardens and balconies are in demand

In any case, the lockdown has meant that customers have taken more care of their investments. “Many took advantage of the fall in prices in spring 2020 and bought securities – some of them for the first time,” says Vogler. The number of securities savings plans in Riesa rose by more than eight percent; the total deposit volume increased by a good seven percent to 24.5 million euros.

There was also a clear upward trend in real estate financing: entrepreneurs invested in their buildings, private customers invested in residential property. “Properties with gardens and balconies were particularly in demand in 2020,” says Vogler. In 2020, new home finance business in Riesa was 7.5 million euros, an increase of 42 percent. It is not only important that more is being built, but also that building costs are rising.

Another reason to go for concrete gold: the negative interest rates that have been preoccupying banks for ten years. There are also many conversations with customers in Riesa.

There are a few things that speak for the city of Riesa

Commerzbank customers on Hauptstrasse are advised by five private customer advisors, a construction finance specialist and a management consultant. This number is not expected to change in the foreseeable future either. “We have a great, well-coordinated team in Riesa,” says the market division manager.

She is also optimistic that Riesa will not be affected by the branch cancellation plans that Commerzbank recently announced. From the current 790 branches nationwide, only 450 will remain in three years. “Riesa is a very interesting location for banks,” says Anja Vogler. The many large companies in the area, a lot of business and a large catchment area would speak for the city. And in fact, the Volksbank Riesa, Sparkasse, Deutsche Bank, Spardabank and Targobank are all within walking distance of Commerzbank.

However, it is increasingly rare to have to go to the branch on foot: Increasingly, loans are also granted via so-called distance selling – where the customer receives the documents, clarifies questions via chat, video conference or telephone with his advisor and, at the end of the day, documents the documents on his own PC signs. “A colleague on the computer has just signed a loan agreement with a customer who lives in the old federal states.”

Nevertheless, it is still important to be available to customers on site. “Especially with larger sums, for example after selling a house, customers want to sit across from an advisor,” says Vogler.

In the neighboring town of Oschatz this is more difficult at the moment. There, the Commerzbank branch closed its doors to customers in the course of the lockdown – and that is still the case today. However, this does not necessarily mean that the branch will permanently disappear, it is said when asked. “The colleagues there are still there and work without direct customer contact.” If, for example, another branch should fail completely due to corona cases, you would still have an emergency branch up your sleeve. Hopefully this will not be necessary in the Elbland.