With consumers embracing digital banking, the number of bank branches in Taiwan dropped to 3,398 as of the end of May, the lowest number in eight years, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday.
“Banks are closing their branches as younger people are more keen to use online banking, including digital bank accounts or mobile payments, rather than go to conventional branches,” Banking Bureau Chief Secretary Phil Tong (童政彰) told a news conference.
After a low of 3,359 in 2011, the number of bank branches in Taiwan steadily rose until 2014, hitting 3,460, but has continued to drop since, the commission’s data showed.
For the first time, no banks applied to set up new branches this year, compared with 32 and 17 applications in 2017 and last year respectively, the data showed.
“We think local banks have their own strategy and they are transforming,” Tong said.
Despite fewer bank branches, the number of bank employees increased to 151,000 last year, from 140,000 in 2014, as banks hired more legal compliance or financial technology talent, Tong said.
By comparison, the number of automatic teller machines (ATMs) has grown steadily over the past three years, tallying 27,240 in 2016, 28,298 in 2017 and 29,701 at the end of May, the commission said.
Consumers are looking for more convenience regarding cash withdrawals, bill payments and transfers, it added.
“More and more local consumers make transactions using 24-hour ATMs. Those machines have partially replaced conventional branches,” Tong said.
To meet customer needs, banks are launching ATMs with new services, including providing foreign currencies for users, he said.
CTBC Bank (中信銀行), which has more than 5,700 ATMs, on Thursday announced that it has added six foreign languages to its ATMs after installing six languages in September last year.
The number of foreign users and the amount of international withdrawals has picked up since it introduced foreign languages to its ATMs, it said.
The lender’s machines offer services in Mandarin, English, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesia, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian, it said.
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