Local bank branches are closing across San Francisco, as the city’s economic decline continues amid crime, homelessness, and a drug epidemic.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday:
Bank branches are vanishing across the country, and San Francisco is having a record-testing year.
Twenty branches shuttered across the city through Oct. 28, according to data from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The closures — from the central Richmond District in the west to Mission Bay in the east, from Fort Mason in the north to Bayview in the south — add up to more than the previous two years combined and represent the most in a single year since at least 2000.
All over California, 277 bank branches have closed so far this year, second only this century to 2020, when 325 branches closed. Branch openings are a much rarer occurrence: Only eight have occurred statewide this year.
Some of the closures are related to well-known crises, like the failure of Silicon Valley Bank earlier this year. Some of them are simply the result of the move to online banking, an to industry-wide consolidation.
But some of the closures in San Francisco are related to the ongoing exodus of retail businesses, many of which were exhausted by the persistent problem of shoplifting. The city’s commercial center has also struggled to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, when work-from-home became the preferred mode for many tech companies.
Many residents moved to more affordable cities, and many of those who made the daily commute into the city decided to stay home instead, forcing local businesses to close.
