Bank customers are particularly dissatisfied in these cities

Raiffeisenbank Hochtaunus is taking a drastic step: by December, its four remaining branches in the region are to close – with the exception of the headquarters in Bad Homburg. And even there, only consultations should take place in the future. Withdraw cash? Customers then have to do this at other ATMs or in cooperating supermarkets.

Almost all traditional money houses are increasingly saving on service in their branches. This is also reflected in customer satisfaction, as an evaluation of the two financial service providers "Money Transfers" and "Atlantic Money" now shows. In October, the companies evaluated more than 47,000 reviews on the Google search engine for around 1,200 banks in the 20 largest German cities.

The result: On average, the branches only achieved an overall rating of 3.7 out of five possible stars. According to market analysts, the average rating across all sectors was around 4.3 – and thus significantly higher.

There are strong regional differences: The branches in Germany's banking capital, Frankfurt am Main, perform the worst. The average rating in the Hessian city is 3.46 out of five possible stars.

Only eleven of a total of 100 locations examined achieved a rating of more than four stars. On the other hand, there are a total of 25 locations in Frankfurt am Main that are rated with less than three stars on average.

The reasons according to customers: particularly long waiting times, outdated processes and bad offers. In addition to the actual service, branch users in the city of bankers are likely to have higher demands than in the rest of the republic. In the second and third place in the comparison are Nuremberg with an average of 3.51 and Berlin and Leipzig, each with 3.57 out of five possible stars.

In Duisburg, on the other hand, the banks are the only city in the comparison to break the four-star mark. Overall, the branches here have an average value of 4.22. Customers mainly praised the friendliness of the employees.

But that is now the exception. The auditing company EY recently surveyed the problem in its banking barometer. "In recent years, institutions in Germany have had to learn how to get along in a low-interest environment and get by with significantly lower interest income than in the past," says Thomas Griess, partner at EY.

At the same time, regulation is tightening. "The bottom line is that it became more and more difficult to operate profitably," says Griess.

On the one hand, additional fees are intended to increase revenue. On the other hand, the banks tried to continue cutting back on administrative costs. The main focus is on the branch network.

According to EY, the bank managers surveyed expect the number of branches in Germany to decline by 21 percent by 2025 on average Number of employees" in the coming months at the so-called front office. This includes all areas with direct customer contact.

Branch users must therefore be prepared for the fact that many things will soon only be possible online. According to EY, new jobs are primarily created in central areas such as risk management or the IT department. According to 55 percent of those surveyed, new jobs will also be created here in the future.

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