Branch closures wave? The number of nationwide banking institutions is not decreasing but increasing. What seems like "closing branches" is actually "entering villages."

Bank branches are the smallest operational units of commercial banks and the core battleground for directly reaching customers and creating value. Their competitiveness directly affects the bank’s operational efficiency and sustainable development capability.

In recent years, the most discussed topic in the industry has been the “disappearance” of bank branches. However, for nationwide commercial banks represented by state-owned banks and joint-stock banks, branch closures are not simply a one-way reduction. Instead, they involve “some retreat and some advance” in layout optimization. In fact, half of the nationwide listed commercial banks have not decreased but increased their branch numbers, forming a stark contrast to the overall industry pattern.

According to statistics from the First Financial based on annual reports of listed banks, by 2025, the number of institutions owned by state-owned banks and listed joint-stock banks will be 89,507, only 256 fewer than in 2024. Given the large number of institutions, this slight change is almost negligible. Moreover, among the total, half of the nationwide commercial banks have increased their number of institutions, especially the Agricultural Bank of China, whose grassroots branches have grown for three consecutive years.

From the annual reports, the growth in large bank branches mainly comes from sinking into county and township markets or upgrading to feature-rich scenarios. On one hand, inefficient branches are being closed; on the other, regional sinking is underway. Behind this “addition and subtraction,” large commercial banks are shifting from “expanding blindly” to “refined cultivation.”

The total number of institutions for nationwide commercial banks is nearly 90k.

According to the First Financial’s statistics from annual reports, by 2025, the six major banks will have a total of 76,092 institutions, a decrease of 208 compared to 2023. Among them, the total number of institutions for Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, and Postal Savings Bank of China has decreased, but only the branches of Construction Bank, Bank of China, and Postal Savings Bank have declined at the grassroots level.

The annual report shows that at the end of 2025, ICBC had a total of 16,246 institutions. After a brief rebound in 2024, it entered a decline again, with a reduction of 137 institutions throughout the year. Historical data indicates that ICBC’s institution count had previously decreased for three consecutive years: 33 in 2021, 134 in 2022, and 159 in 2023.

However, the reduction in 2025 mainly occurred in subsidiaries and their branches, decreasing from 350 at the beginning of the year to 134, a net reduction of 216. Last year, the bank’s net increase in branches was 69, with a decrease of 130 in 2024.

Among large state-owned banks, the reductions in branches of China Construction Bank and Postal Savings Bank are more prominent. Construction Bank’s total institutions at the end of 2025 were 14,614, a net decrease of 136, including a net reduction of 122 branches; Postal Savings Bank had 7,758 institutions, a net decrease of 141, with 135 branches closed.

Agricultural Bank of China is the most active among the six major state-owned banks in increasing grassroots branches. By the end of 2025, it had 23,128 domestic branches, the largest among all banks. Of these, 19,313 are grassroots operational units. Between 2021 and 2022, the number of grassroots branches declined for two consecutive years, but began to rebound in 2023. In 2024, it increased by 39, and last year, the growth accelerated, with a net increase of 249.

In terms of joint-stock banks, by the end of 2025, the total number of institutions for listed joint-stock banks was 13,415, a slight decrease of only 48 compared to the previous year, maintaining overall stability.

Among them, Ping An Bank and Minsheng Bank saw more significant reductions, decreasing by 41 and 50 respectively. In terms of total institutions, Industrial Bank has the most at 2,095; followed by China Merchants Bank with 1,955; Zhejiang Commercial Bank has the fewest, with only 376.

Overall, out of the 15 listed nationwide commercial banks, 7 saw an increase in institutions, while 8 experienced a decrease.

The “addition and subtraction” of bank branches

The closure of bank branches is not simply a one-way reduction but a “some retreat and some advance” layout optimization, reallocating resources from inefficient physical nodes to county coverage, feature-rich branches, and other scenarios. For example, last year, ICBC completed the optimization of 474 branches, with 187 branches optimized in key urban areas; China Construction Bank relocated and optimized 248 branches; China Merchants Bank relocated and optimized 123 branches.

Taking large banks as an example, when checking the “Financial License Information” on the website of the Financial Regulatory Administration, it was found that since 2026, the six major state-owned banks have exited a total of 108 branches but have also newly established 83 branches. Today, the layout logic of banks has undergone fundamental changes, no longer simply pursuing the number of branches and geographic coverage, but focusing more on service depth, professional value, and customer stickiness in specific scenarios.

One of the main directions of branch adjustment and optimization is the continuous sinking of branches into county and township areas to fill gaps. For example, ICBC invested in 104 branches in county and township areas in 2024, covering 11 previously unserved counties, and in 2025, it added 141 new branches in county and township areas, increasing the county coverage rate from 87.4% to 87.5%.

Construction Bank also invests resources in county channels, establishing 32 new branches in rural areas last year, with 23 of them in county regions.

Since 2024, Postal Savings Bank has been deploying branch layout optimization and image enhancement projects nationwide, establishing a total of 76 new branches in top counties by economy, key towns, provincial-level rural revitalization counties, and new urban areas and districts.

County and township areas are the main battleground for Agricultural Bank of China. Last year, the bank relocated and built 179 branches in townships, established 1,742 rural service stations, continuously expanding financial service coverage. The rural service coverage rate has been steadily increasing, reaching 100% in county areas. By further sinking service focus and extending service reach, Agricultural Bank has built a six-in-one channel system of “physical branches + self-service devices + mobile banking + rural service stations + mobile service vehicles + remote banking,” improving service capabilities from villages to households.

Not only state-owned banks but joint-stock banks are also continuously sinking branches. For example, as of the end of last year, China Merchants Bank had established 133 county branches, adding 2 new ones that year to enhance county-level financial service coverage.

Of course, the nationwide sinking of branches and services by commercial banks in recent years has also posed significant challenges to regional commercial banks, which have historically held regional dominance, prompting them to reshape their core regional competitiveness.

ATM machines decreased by 268.2k units over five years

Additionally, digitalization, intelligence, scene-based, and feature-rich services are becoming the core keywords for new types of joint-stock bank branches. For example, Industrial Bank upgrades traditional branches into shared ecological spaces integrating financial services, business socializing, and value sharing. By 2025, it plans to have 100 branches in the design or under construction phase, with key flagship branches in Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Fuzhou.

Ping An Bank has built a digital customer acquisition platform centered on branches, enriching the ecosystem of surrounding merchants, and leveraging the “Ping An Good Neighbor” online service brand to deepen connections among customers, merchants, and branches, strengthening online-offline channel synergy.

Minsheng Bank has partnered with Sam’s Club to create a “financial + retail” service model, embedding community branches into Sam’s Club stores to provide one-stop financial services, including co-branded debit and credit cards, consumer loans, and wealth management. By the end of 2025, the bank had opened over 10 Sam’s Club community branches, with customer acquisition quality and operational efficiency surpassing traditional community branches.

Meanwhile, as mobile banking and other online channels gradually integrate financial and non-financial “one-stop” services, the off-site rate of banking services continues to rise, and self-service devices within branches are gradually losing their utility. The annual report shows that last year, some banks continued to reduce the number of ATMs (including traditional self-service devices, self-service terminals, video counters, and smart counters).

For example, ICBC reduced 523 self-service banking units last year, with 4,159 smart devices and 2,642 ATMs eliminated, and ATM transaction volume decreased by 298.3 billion yuan; China Construction Bank reduced 2,635 ATMs and 4,798 smart counters; CITIC Bank reduced 1,403 self-service devices and 133 smart counters.

According to the “Overall Operation of the Payment System in 2025” released by the People’s Bank of China, last year, the total number of ATMs nationwide was 745.7k, a decrease of 57k from the end of 2024. Over the past five years, the number of ATMs in China’s banking industry has decreased by a total of 268.2k units.