There has been some great analysis done on branch profitability over the last few years, and in markets like the US the data means we can very precisely predict when a specific branch is likely to close in the near-term. It turns out there are some fairly predictable pain points or metrics that are warning bells for heads of distribution. The first is simply number of deposits.

If you have a branch that has less than $15 million in deposits your costs are 10 times those of a larger branch. This means that 18% of branches in the U.S. today (or around 15,000 branches) are on the verge of collapse. On average these branches are losing around $50,000 to $75,000 a quarter. You can see a detailed analysis here from the team at Optirate.

The Death of the Branch

• Day One: Amazon, Apple, Kindle light the fire under e-commerce.
• Day Two: Changing consumer behavior drives down branch use, profitability.
• Day Three: The inevitable end of bricks-and-mortar branching.

Account opening is also taking a hit. According to recent analysis done by Jim Bruene of NetBanker, 80% of bank branches in the U.S. open just two (that's not a typo) new account relationships per month for retail banking, and around two new business relationships per year. Higher performing branches do 15 times that volume, or 33 new accounts per month. At 10 new accounts per month the numbers start to stack up a bit better, but below that the likelihood of that branch being able to  derive sufficient new revenue to sustain itself is unlikely.