The Weekender: When Banks Start Dressing for the Job They Want

Before a bank branch disappears, apparently, it must first become Barbie’s dream collateral.

In Easton, Pennsylvania, the former Fidelity Bank branch at 101 S. Third St. has been painted a glorious, unapologetic pink ahead of its planned demolition for The Lynden, a seven-story residential development, lehighvalleylive.com reported May 14. A local graffiti and tattoo artist was even commissioned to paint a target mural on the building.

If you’re going to summon a wrecking ball, you may as well give it stage direction.

That pink bank is not just a local oddity. It is a neon footnote in a much larger identity crisis. The bank branch, once the place where people went to deposit checks, ask awkward questions about overdrafts and collect lollipops with suspiciously long shelf lives, is no longer the default front door to finance.

The American Bankers Association’s 2025 Preferred Banking Methods report found that 54% of bank customers most often use mobile apps, while only 9% put branches first. A Federal Reserve paper, “Where’s the Bank? Banking Access in the Era of Branch Consolidation,” found that bank branches in the United States declined 19% from 2014 to 2024. And

Yet the branch is not dead. It is molting. ABA’s analysis of 2024 FDIC and NCUA deposit statistics revealed that banks and credit unions still added at least 1,000 branches in each of the past four years.

The branch is no longer just a transaction box. It is becoming a destination.

So, what are banks doing to make these places attractive? In the most straightforward cases, they are swapping the DMV energy for something closer to an Apple Store with mortgage paperwork.

Bank of America said May 13 that it plans to open more than 150 new financial centers by 2027 and has invested more than $5 billion in its network since 2016. The point is not to lure people in to cash a check like it is 1998. It is to bring them in for advice, planning and relationship-building.

Wells Fargo is also refurbishing branches with consult rooms, lounge areas, digital signage and updated finishes. Translation: fewer velvet ropes, more “let’s talk through your financial journey” in a chair that looks like it came from a hotel lobby.

Then there is the café branch, the industry’s most caffeinated attempt to solve the foot-traffic problem. Capital One Cafés are part bank, part coffee shop, part laptop sanctuary. They offer Verve coffee, free Wi-Fi, work areas, events, workshops and one-on-one Money & Life mentoring. You don’t even have to be a Capital One customer to walk in. This is banking reimagined as a third place. Come for the cold brew, stay because someone gently asks whether your budget has a feelings journal.

JPMorgan Chase has taken another route: the branch as a community center. Its Community Center branches are designed with extra space for free local events, financial health workshops, skills training and small business pop-ups. Many include local art and architecture. This is the sensible version of the trend. In an app-first world, a physical branch needs to do what an app cannot, which is host people, convene neighborhoods and make the bank feel less like a faceless balance sheet with a logo.

But the truly wild stuff is where this gets fun.

Spain’s CaixaBank “all in one” Barcelona is a 3,000-square-meter (about 32,000-square-foot) financial experience hub with a café, auditorium, more than 30 private offices, facial-recognition ATMs and self-check-in machines.

In Japan, the Sugamo Shinkin Bank Nakaaoki branch, designed by Emmanuelle Moureaux, uses colorful cubes and elevated gardens in an explicit attempt to create a bank where people want to stay longer and come back. It looks less like a place to refinance and more like a credit union that swallowed a rainbow.

And yes, there have been in-branch experiences that sound like dares.

Virgin Money’s lounge strategy has included spaces for networking events, seminars, yoga and gigs, according to I-AM’s Virgin Money brand experience work, while the Sheffield Lounge became famous for putting Tenpin Bowling lanes inside an operating bank.

Umpqua Bank, now Columbia Bank, an early evangelist of branch-as-store design, has long leaned into coffee, community rooms and hangout energy. In 2018, its branches were described as neighborhood “stores” with local products, free coffee and events.

The punchline is that banks are rediscovering the one thing they spent two decades trying to automate away: presence. Not every branch needs a café, a scent strategy, a bowling lane or a mural that says, “Demolish me, but make it fashion.” But if the everyday deposit has moved to the phone, the physical branch must earn its rent as a stage for trust, advice and community.

The pink Easton bank may be going away, but it understood the assignment. In the digital economy, even a doomed branch needs a brand moment before the wrecking ball arrives.