Three clients per morning are just too little

The times in which it has to be money quite naturally, to the Bank, worn are over. In the past few decades has halved the number of branches in Germany. Also, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are Set after the Failure of their Fusion and branches of mine. the By Harald Freiberger und Markus Zydra Harald Freiberger

Born in 1962 in Dingolfing, Germany, studied journalism in Munich. 13 years at the evening newspaper in Munich, most recently as head of economic. Since 2008, the SZ, first as a sheet maker for money, from 2009 to 2015 as a correspondent for banks in Frankfurt. Since then, again in Munich. Topics. an E-Mail Markus Zydra

Markus Zydra send writes as a financial correspondent in Frankfurt, and reports with a focus on the European Central Bank. He has previously worked as an economic editor at the Financial Times Deutschland and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In the 1990s, he was a Scandinavia correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Stockholm.

have changed the times at the Bank counter, this historical promotional film of the savings banks, the can on Youtube. It is the late 1950s in Germany, a cartoon of a male with a match, A scrawny legs and one-penny-coin as a head climbs up again and again in the wallet. The Film is black-and-white, and in the Background, a quatrain is heard: "a stable Value of your money remains, if it receives the savings Bank. Where saved penny is safe and of yourself Boy gets. And it's only a whole bunch, you can buy a country house."

Earlier one has taken his money yet, of course, to the Bank. The content of the reward bags there paid, the Savings and cash brought. It was asked there to take credit for a new car, negotiated the in-house financing. The store was the meeting place for money transactions and was as much a part of the town centre such as Church and public house. However, in the past decades has halved the number of branches in Germany. The merger of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank from the table, it is also because the trade unions against the planned mass closing be liable to applied branches.

But also separated the two large banks and branches of mine. In Germany, there are approximately 1600 banks, the consulting firm Oliver Wyman in its study on the German banking market. In France, there are only half as many. This means that in Germany also in the future, banks will disappear or merge with larger units. "In the next ten years, not all the stores will disappear, but maybe in the next 50 years," says Gökhan Öztürk, a Partner at Oliver Wyman. Certain transactions, such as investment advice, very high money transfers and house purchase would also be running in the next few years on the branches.

But for many other transactions, the branch is no longer needed. Cash customers on the machines, but also in the supermarket at the checkout. Wire transfers make online. The mediation of loans runs via comparison portals on the Internet. The large banks in the Metropolitan areas in the representative branches. In the country but the supply is getting thinner and thinner. It starts with the fact that the branch is only open in the mornings or three days a week. Eventually it closes entirely. Thousands of places and parts of town lost in the past years in Germany your own Bank.

Usually it is a branch of the savings banks and Volks - and Raiffeisen banks, the close in small places. The heads of these institutions report that some branch in the morning, only two or three customers would come. For the Bank the reindeer. Moreover, it was also for the employees frustrating when you herumsäßen. They rather wanted to work in a branch, in the nor

the Latest Trend is the Bank in your pocket

There are a few factors that have accelerated the process in recent years. Since the financial crisis, which destroyed confidence in the banking sector in a sustainable way. Many innocent customers realized that the friendly Bank Manager is working more on its own account and the risky securities had turned on with the promise that they will be safe. At the same time, the banks are coming due for years of low interest rates, more and more under pressure; they need to save costs, and a proven remedy for this is to close unprofitable stores.

the Revolution through Online and digital banks. About 20 years ago, started the first banking business over the Internet. Meanwhile, institutions such as ING, DKB or Comdirect customers in the tens of millions. They appreciate it, to do Transfers from the Couch, and not more in the branch run.

the Latest Trend is the Bank in your pocket. The most successful of them is called as the N26, it offers all the shops over the phone and has two million customers. But the convenience has its price. Only recently it became known that the N26 has problems with fake accounts and customer service. The Start-up has grown faster than the quality of its processes. Times have really changed since the days of the penny was still safe, and Young got.