Banks today have been increasingly reducing their physical presence and redirecting customers to digital channels, and yet, the consequences of this strategy are not well studied. This paper investigates the effects of banks’ branch network changes (i.e., branch openings and branch closures) on customer omnichannel banking behavior. Using approximately 0.85 million (33 months’) anonymized individual-level banking transactions from a large commercial bank in the United States, this paper shows the asymmetric effects of branch openings and branch closures on customer omnichannel banking behavior. In particular, we find that branch openings increase customers’ branch transactions; however, the first branch opening leads to a migration of complex transactions to the branches, which might result in a net decrease in online banking in the short term. As consumers interact more with the physical channel, there is a gradual synergistic increase in customers’ transactions via online banking as well as alternative channels due to a learning spillover effect. The learning spillover effect goes from easy online inquiries to more complex online transactions as additional branches open. On the contrary, branch closures result in a favorable migration pattern from the branch channel to online banking. This pattern, however, could be reversed once the last branch closes within the customer’s residential neighborhood. Our study teases out the underlying mechanisms that drive customer omnichannel banking behavior in the context of branch openings and branch closures, and discusses the managerial implications for branch network restructuring and banking channel management.

中文翻译：

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银行来找您时：分支机构网络和客户全渠道银行行为

如今，银行已经越来越多地减少其实际存在并将客户重定向到数字渠道，但是，这种策略的后果还没有得到很好的研究。本文研究了银行分支机构网络变化（即分支机构开业和分支机构关闭）对客户全渠道银行行为的影响。本文使用来自美国一家大型商业银行的约85万笔（33个月）匿名个人级银行交易，显示了分支机构开设和关闭对客户全渠道银行行为的不对称影响。特别是，我们发现开设分支机构增加了客户的分支机构交易；但是，第一个分支机构的开业会导致复杂的交易迁移到分支机构，这可能会导致短期内在线银行业务的净减少。随着消费者与实体渠道的互动越来越多，由于学习溢出效应，通过网上银行以及其他渠道的客户交易会逐渐协同增长。学习外溢的影响从轻松的在线查询到更多的分支机构开放而变得更加复杂的在线交易。相反，分支机构的关闭导致从分支机构渠道到在线银行的有利迁移模式。但是，一旦最后一个分支在客户的住宅小区内关闭，则可以反转此模式。我们的研究提出了在分支机构开设和分支机构关闭的情况下驱动客户全渠道银行行为的基本机制，并讨论了对分支机构网络重组和银行渠道管理的管理意义。