Mel Rising Dawn Cordeiro
News Editor
Last week, Citizens Bank announced the closure of 15 branches around the country, one of which includes the Newport Ave location in Rumford. Representatives from Citizens Bank said in an emailed statement that they have "been on a journey at Citizens to evolve how our customers bank with us, and we continually review customer patterns to evolve and adjust branch strategy across our network.” For the second quarter of the fiscal year 2024, Citizens Bank had closed 77 physical branches. This closing, which will be reported for the third quarter, means that Citizens Bank is responding to and trying to recover from the setback.
The closing of this one branch may not substantially impact Rhode Islanders, but Citizens Bank has noticeably joined a country-wide trend in bank closures. TD Bank closed seven branch locations in Massachusetts just last month. Bank of America has closed 66 locations this year, too, with five of those locations in Massachusetts and four in Connecticut.
However, bank failures and closures are not new trends. Since the pandemic, financial institutions have not been faring well. Local and national banks all took hits due to the state of the economy. This does not mean that banks have stopped serving customers, it just means that banks will invest more in their digital presence and service customers on phone applications and through customer service calls instead.
There are a number of reasons why bank branches may close. For example, a larger bank may buy out a smaller bank, causing a merger, a bank may be financially unstable and may not have the opportunity to be bailed out, or there may not be enough foot traffic at a location. If a local branch is closing, the accounts it holds are safe as it is just the physical location that is closing. Customers are notified via notice approximately 90 days before closure and will be advised as to what steps they need to take, if any. If the bank corporation is going out of business, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, known as the FDIC, will oversee the closure.
The Rumford location is set to close in January 2025, leaving 51 branch locations in RI.
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