Wells Fargo is planning to shut down 122 bank branches in California, mostly the offices that it got after the takeover of Wachovia last year, reported the Los Angeles Times. Wells Fargo is mainly targetting the branches that are smaller and less prominently located than nearby its branches.
Reportedly, California is said to be the only state where the lenders had overlapping retail branches. Even after the downsizing excercise the San Francisco-based lender would have more than 1,000 branches in the region.
Joe Morford, a San Francisco-based analyst, who follows Western banks for RBC Capital Markets, said: “Given the amount of overlap in the Wells Fargo and Wachovia branch networks in urban areas throughout the state, the closures appear to be on the light side. This seems like a prudent, rational move. I think they could have closed more. It shows how Wells Fargo values branches” as a way to establish bonds with customers,” reported the newspaper.
