French lender Societe Generale has shut down some of its bank offices for the summer break this year as part of an experiment with reduced opening hours.
Without revealing the number of branches closed, a bank spokeswoman said that as part of the experiment, some may be closed for half days or closed completely through the summer in order to regroup forces at bigger sites.
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Compared to the branch network in 2010, the French bank has already reduced its branch footprint by 2% to 3,161 branches in 2013.The number of online connections to its services has more than trebled over the last four years.
Branch closures are attributed to the surge in Internet banking. SocGen initiated a six to eight month-long experiment with opening hours in the first half of this year.
In order to compete with the low-cost Internet-competitors, European banks such as SocGen and BNP are bolstering their own online operations. BNP rolled out a Europe-wide online bank – Hello bank! last year and SocGen purchased minority holders of its online bank brand Boursorama.
A study by the France’s biggest banking association in May revealed that the number of clients who visited a French bank branch several times per month decreased to 17% in 2013 from 52% in 2010.
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