While banks continued to see deposit growth over the past year, it lagged five-year averages at both community banks and non-community banks, according to the latest issue of the FDIC Quarterly. Reviewing figures from the latest FDIC Summary of Deposits, the article noted that year-over-year merger-adjusted deposit growth at community banks was at 4.9 percent, trailing the five-year annual rate of 5.1 percent. Non-community banks, meanwhile, saw deposit growth of 3.6 percent, well below their five-year average of 5.5 percent. Over the past five years, however, deposit growth at non-community banks has outpaced that at community banks.
From June 2017 to June 2018, all insured deposits nationwide rose by $450 billion, or roughly 3.8 percent. As bank consolidation continued and branch networks continued to shrink, deposits per institution increased 8.4 percent and deposits per office rose 5.9 percent.
The total number of bank branches in the U.S. fell over the last year by 2 percent, the second-fastest rate of decline and exceeding the five-year annual decline of 1.8 percent. The decrease was driven largely by non-community banks, the FDIC noted. Over the past five years, the decline in branches was slowest in rural areas — just 6.6 percent, compared with an 8.8 percent reduction in metropolitan areas and an 8.7 percent in micropolitan areas.
