As banks reduce staff — the Royal said Wednesday it will cut 450 jobs — analysts offer cheap talk about whether there is room to economize even more by reducing the number of branches. We are all banking electronically with ease now, right? It is less than 15 years since BMO realized it was losing consumer business because it had closed branches. The CIBC also bumped up locations after the turn of the Century. Which of the Five Sisters is brave enough to face the distress of account holders who suddenly can’t see their bank’s door on a business street nearby? Edward Jones analyst Jim Shanahan told Canadian Press that he thinks “there’s some opportunity for the banks to get quite a bit more aggressive” in this regard.
