Berlin
The savings banks are struggling with branch deaths. That makes you inventive: in the future there will be unusual achievements in some places.
Hardly anyone still does their banking in the branch. That’s what the savings banks and Volksbanks get with their dense branch network particularly felt. The banks are increasingly having to close their branches or revive them – if necessary using unusual means.
The Kölner Sparkasse announced in December that as part of a pilot project official business in the premises of the Sparkasse Köln-Bonn in Rodenkirchen. Two city employees sit in the bank’s offices once a week. Cologne residents can apply for identity cards and passports there by appointment.
Sparkasse: Hamburg with established cooperation between banks and administration
The project is scheduled to run until the end of May. If the service is well received, it will be expanded to other branches in the Cologne area. City Director Andrea Blome announced: “If the pilot project is successful, we will expand our offer to other locations in the Cologne Veedeln. Our goal is to improve the services of the customer centers closer to the people of Cologne and thereby offer them shorter distances and better service.”
What is still being tested in Cologne is already established elsewhere. In Hamburg, the city’s “mobile customer centers” have existed for some time. In some branches of Hamburger Sparkasse customers have been able to do their official business since 2021 – even the fishing license is available here. “The cooperation with Haspa enables us to make simple and citizen-friendly offers and to be where the citizens live, work and live,” said the second mayor of Hamburg Katharina Fegebank (Greens) about the unusual measure.
Bank deaths are progressing – also at the Sparkasse
That is the decisive reason for the cooperation between banks and administration branch deaths. According to the Bundesbank, the number of branches has more than halved in the past twenty years. Of the more than 50,000 branches, only 21,700 are left – and the trend is still falling.
Instead of in the branch, customers do their business online. And even ATMs are less needed thanks to credit card payments. No wonder, then, that the savings banks get increasingly creative. However, it remains questionable whether the cooperation between city administrations and savings banks will prevail. (lro)
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