According to this week’s Market Rates Insight National Pricing Indicator report, banks branches are expanding across the United States, even in areas that showed little or no population growth. It seems that banks are continuing to add local branches across the board in a disproportionate rate to changes in population.
According to the latest estimates from the 2010 Census by the United States Census Bureau, the 10 states that shows minimal or no population change over the last decade are Michigan, Rhode Island, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, all with less than 1.0 percent population growth; and Ohio (1.7 percent), Vermont (2.1 percent), Pennsylvania (2.6 percent), Iowa (2.8 percent), 
and New York (3 percent). In Rhode Island, the population growth was less than 1.0 percent, yet the number of branches grew by 15
percent, and in New York State, despite a population growth of only 3 percent, the number of branches increased by 19 percent in the last decade.(see Figure 1).
In the 10 highest population growth states – Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Idaho, Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, Florida and South Carolina – the number of bank branches increased at the same rate or higher than the population growth since the 2000 census. For example, Nevada’s population increased 32 percent over the last 10 years, but the number of bank branches increased by 45 percent (see Figure 2).
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