Was 2015 the year bank branches officially became outdated? This year, Quartz reports, the number of people using mobile banking officially surpassed the number of customers still going to their local branch to take care of "weekly banking needs."
Tech-savvy millennials may be a driving force behind the trend, but data from Javelin Research indicates that it's likely more widespread; an estimated 39 percent of mobile bankers began using the technology this year alone. Since just 2009, the number of bank branches in the U.S. has dropped roughly 7,000, from nearly 100,000 branches to just over 93,000 branches.
The future doesn't look much rosier either. If anything, this year's trends suggest that local branches are moving toward extinction at an even faster rate.
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