The branch is not dead — it was just poorly scheduled

For fifteen years, I’ve been reading the same obituary: the bank branch is dying. Mobile banking, neobanks, AI advisors—who needs a counter anymore? Branch networks in Europe have indeed been shrinking for years. And yet, I consider the thesis of the dying branch to be one of the industry's most consequential misdiagnoses. Because it confuses two things: the transaction and the advice.

What is actually dying—and what isn't

What has died is the transactional branch. Nobody misses standing in line for a bank transfer. What isn't dying—and the data here is remarkably consistent—is the desire for personal advice when making major decisions.

Accenture shows in its global consumer study that customers across all generations and almost all markets continue to value branches, with more than six out of ten choosing the in-person route for specific, complex requests [1]. A TD Bank survey shows: Three out of five customers prefer visiting a branch for major financial decisions such as a mortgage or opening an account [2]. And even among supposedly digital-only Millennials, Deloitte found that roughly one-third prefer the branch for financial advice [3].

The pattern is clear: The higher the stakes, the stronger the desire for a human being. A mortgage is the single biggest financial decision in most customers' lives. They don't sign it in a chatbot.

The real problem: The path to advice

If the demand for advice exists—why are the advisory areas in many banks half empty? My answer after years in this market: It’s not the branch that is broken, but access to it.

The traditional way to book an advisory appointment is an imposition: calling during business hours, sifting through availabilities, waiting for confirmation. At the same time, our platform data shows that 38 to 42 percent of appointment bookings take place outside of business hours—in the evening when couples discuss financing, or on Sundays when retirement planning comes up. A bank that isn't bookable at that moment simply doesn't exist in that decision-making moment.

The branch doesn't have a demand problem. It has an appointment problem.

The renaissance: Advice as an orchestrated experience

The most exciting projects I am currently supporting—in Switzerland with Calenso, internationally with jrni—reimagine the branch as what it ought to be: a network of high-value advisory capacity unlocked digitally. I like to call this the "Virtual Branch": The customer meets the bank digitally, books digitally—and decides for themselves whether the conversation takes place on-site, via video, or over the phone.

Specifically, this means:

• Every digital touchpoint becomes bookable. The mortgage page, online banking, campaign landing pages—everywhere, a single click leads directly to the calendar of the right advisor. Contextual data (topic, product, language) flows along with it so that the advisor enters the conversation fully prepared.
• Skill-based routing instead of random allocation. A customer looking for succession planning lands with a certified specialist, not just the next open slot. Especially in a regulated environment—keyword advisory documentation and proof of qualifications—this is not just convenience, it's compliance.
• Appointments stick. Automated reminders and one-click rescheduling reduce no-show rates in our implementations by 50 to 75 percent. For a bank, this means: The expensive advisory capacity you are paying for anyway is finally being utilized.
• Capacity becomes manageable. When booking data shows that retirement planning appointments are in high demand on Tuesday evenings and Saturdays, the bank can adjust its availability to match demand—instead of the other way around.

A real-world example from our practice: An insurer with 200 advisors that systematically digitalizes appointment access gains 15 to 25 percent additional advisory appointments and reclaims two to four hours of administration time per advisor per week through 24/7 bookability alone. The logic in retail banking is identical—except that real estate and personnel cost pressures make the business case even more compelling.

My thesis

The banks that win in five years will not be those with the most branches—nor those with none. They will be the ones that distribute their human advisory expertise like a premium product: digitally discoverable, instantly bookable, intelligently routed, and reliably held. Physical presence transforms from a cost center into a key differentiator—but only if the path to get there is as frictionless as paying via an app.

Takeaway

It is the transactional branch that has died, not advisory services: Six out of ten customers still seek an in-person conversation for complex financial matters. The bottleneck is access—whoever makes advice bookable 24/7, routes intelligently, and keeps appointments reliable turns the branch network back into a growth channel.