Most strategic plans protect what exists. Fewer are built to win.
As your financial institution kicks off strategic planning for 2026, start thinking about branches at the micro-market level. Are they strategically placed where future customers are? Are they acting as the advice engines customers say they need? Branch closures picked up in Q1 2025, deposits are growing slowly, and population growth is concentrating in specific corridors.
These are persistent challenges that must be considered as banks undertake 2026 strategic planning:
Net branch closures accelerated in Q1 2025 after a quieter Q4 2024
Many branches underperform on new-to-bank checks, which puts a premium on choreography and placement
In-person advice at the branch still moves customer satisfaction and sales
Banking deserts create coverage gaps and opportunities for lighter formats
Stop Pruning and Start Planting for Growth
Pruning a branch network pointed at yesterday’s demand does not create tomorrow’s customers. We advise clients to weigh their footprint toward the micro-markets that show household formation, daytime population, and small business density. Do the math first, then apply it to the map. When thinking about your financial institution’s 2026 banking strategy:
Rank micro-markets within your MSAs by net migration, household formation, deposit churn, income bands, and business density
Assign a strategy for each micro-market to expand, hold, or exit with a five-year view of funded balances
Treat banking deserts as coverage opportunities for lighter formats or ITM hubs where a full build will not meet ROI hurdles
Determining which banking branches should be opened, closed, or relocated is a data-intensive process. This should be an ongoing exercise within every financial institution, looking at branch network optimization through the lens of both market research and individual branch data.
Make Digital the Orchestrator and the Branch the Closer
Banks love to debate channel. Customers do not. They want useful conversations when the stakes are high, and quick taps when they are not. The branch is still where most primary banking relationships begin, but these branches must optimized to meet consumer needs and expectations. Banking customers still value in-person guidance for higher-stakes decisions, and satisfaction rises when the basics are executed well. To improve customer experience at the branch, banks and credit unions should:
Create measurable choreography architecture: greet by name in 30 seconds, triage quickly, route to the right banker, follow up until funded
Track booked appointments, show rates, and funded balances at 30, 60, and 90 days
Redesign conversation space for different levels formality and privacy based on consumer preference; more options offer more opportunity
Leverage banking apps and online tools to book and route, not to replace advice
Defining and executing against a North Star vision for the ideal customer experience at the branch is a cross-functional endeavor that includes team members from across the organization, including operations, marketing, facilities and IT. It also requires a firm handle on the customer experience in existing branches. From mystery shopping to designing collaborative, advisory-centric branches, we help clients identify challenges and create consultative experiences and are a full-service partner for brand and branch transformation.
Get Honest About Productivity and Branch Format Mix
Branch productivity for new-to-bank checking has declined across the industry. In the benchmarks provided by Curinos, an analytics and strategy provider for the financial industry, most branches achieve fewer than one new-to-bank checking sale per day. That is a choreography and placement issue, not a reason to abandon acquisition from the branch. Not all micro-markets are created equal, and not all banking branches should be treated the same.
Optimizing a bank’s branch network requires a deep understanding of each branch’s unique role, potential, and market influence. Defining bank branches by archetype – Momentum, Flagship, Neighborhood, and Convenience – clarifies the role the branch plays in contributing to the network’s overall success. Branch archetypes inform smart network planning to create a right-sized and resilient branch network that meets customers where they are in the ways they need to be supported.
Considerations for 2026 branch network planning:
Set deposit hurdles for branch staff and be honest about the production necessary to justify the investment
Define productivity standards for new-to-bank checking per quarter, per FTE, and even per square foot
Re-certify every retail site against its branch archetype annually with goals around funding and retention, not lobby aesthetics
Put ITMs only where travel radius and patterns justify the spend – using them to extend hours, cover retail deserts, or to free up staff – and measure assisted conversions, not device counts
Set Capital Rules that Force Tradeoffs
Deposit growth is expected to remain sluggish through 2025. Softer growth means stricter gates. Setting a realistic five-year capital and OpEx pro forma is a table stakes directive that retail banking teams must be ready to address – not just with bank executives, but also with branch leadership. The full team should understand the spend and requirements to justify it. For example, as a common practice, for every million dollars spent on branch renovation, refresh, or construction, the business is responsible for an incremental $10M in deposit growth. This best practice is often skipped within strategic planning processes and should be included in all retail network planning decisions.
Guidance for 2026 strategic bank planning:
Define format-specific deposit hurdles and a five-year payback as default for remodels and new builds
Tie the spend of Neighborhood and Convenience branch archetypes to attrition defense and service cost reductions
Exit or convert sites that cannot clear their hurdle within the timeframe
Strategic Planning for Banks in Execution: A Case Study
A 90-branch regional bank based in the Northeast worked with Adrenaline to create a full network optimization plan from powerful market data. The 5-year roadmap prioritized one specific micro-market in need of a refresh. This market included three undersized locations in fast-growth suburbs that were underperforming against the market potential. The organization took the following actions to grow in this area.
Two of these locations were converted to the Momentum branch archetype and updated with appointment-first routing, extended advice hours, multiple conversation zones, and minimal transaction areas. The other branch became an ITM-anchored Convenience node to cover a banking desert while deferring a full new construction build set for that location. The distribution council funded the changes by exiting two stagnant micro-markets and capping planned spend on three Neighborhood sites to focus on attrition defense.
Within two quarters, new-to-bank checking per FTE rose and funding velocity improved, with a tracked path to five-year payback. The lesson is: invest where growth is real; right-size everywhere else.
Strategic bank planning is not a deck. It is a capital plan and an operating system for growth. In 2026, financial institutions will have to prioritize placing branches where people are going and run them like advice engines. Every square foot of the branch should be funded with a hurdle you intend to clear. Once the strategy is designed, then it can be put into a board-ready plan, a ranked market roadmap, and a build-versus-retrofit program that pays you back.
From digging deep into data to defining retail banking strategy, decisioning prototypes, and making branching decisions, Adrenaline uses analytics, modeling, and roadmaps to optimize bank and credit union growth driven by the branch channel. Then, we help you seamlessly manage assets across your retail network with facility management solutions. Contact us for guidance on strategic planning for your financial institution.
Adrenaline is an end-to-end brand experience company serving the financial industry. We move brands and businesses ahead by delivering on every aspect of their experience across digital and physical channels, from strategy through implementation. Our multi-disciplinary team works with leadership to advise on purpose, position, culture, and retail growth strategies. We create brands people love and engage audiences from employees to customers with story-led design and insights-driven marketing; and we design and build transformative brand experiences across branch networks, leading the construction and implementation of physical spaces that drive business advantage and make the brand experience real.
