The number of bank branches in Greater Washington fell again in 2022, as it has nearly every year since 2011.
This time, it reached the lowest number since the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. began tracking bank branches in 1994. In all, banks closed 101 branches in the market over the past year. There are now 1,300 total branches in Greater Washington, according to FDIC data as of June 30, down from 1,401 a year earlier and 478 fewer than 10 years ago.
The decrease comes as more customers are banking online, a trend accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic, but consolidation in the industry also played a part. Charlotte, North Carolina-based Truist Bank (NYSE: TFC) closed 54 branches in the region, more than any other bank with a presence in the D.C. market. The closures were an expected result of the 2019 merger between Atlanta’s SunTrust Banks Inc. and Winston-Salem, North Carolina’s BB&T Corp. that created Truist. The bank still has the largest number of branches of any bank in the…
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