ECONOMY: Nearly 500 Cyprus bank branches have closed in six years

A total of 486 bank branches have closed in Cyprus over the past six years following the demise of two of its largest lenders, Laiki Bank and the Co-op in 2013 and 2018 respectively.

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As a result, bank customers have seen service points drastically reduced by more than half. Before the economy crashed, in 2012, a year before the closure of Laiki Bank, bank branches numbered a huge 850.

With 2013 bailout and demise of second largest bank Laiki, and its absorption by Bank of Cyprus, the number of branches in Cyprus was reduced to 682.

The next wave of shrinkages came in 2016 with the number of branches falling by 140  to 544 and in 2017 that number shrank to 460.

Last year the demise of the Co-op and its good assists portfolio acquired by Hellenic Bank, the number of customer branches islandwide fell to 386.

The shrinkage in the number of bank branches follows the pattern of a number of other EU countries.

In Greece in 2018 there were 1,978 branches compared to 2,168 in 2017, recording a decrease of 8.8%. Sweden’s network saw a large shrinkage in 2018 with 26.5% of branches closing, followed by Portugal with 16.6%, Finland with 11.5%, Lithuania with 15.4% and Latvia with 12.4%

Despite the reduction in the number of branches, Cyprus still has a disproportionate number of bank employees (8,946) in relation to other countries with a larger population.

Following the collapse of Laiki and the Co-op a total of 2,221 bank employees were given the option to of voluntary retire or offered a pay-off.