Chase closing three branches in Bergen

Oct. 01--JPMorgan Chase Bank, which has more Bergen County branches than any other depository, plans to close three of them in November, the company said, reflecting an industrywide decline in branch visits as more consumers shift to mobile banking.

The bank, whose parent company is in New York City, has recently filed applications with its main federal regulator to shut branches on Broad Avenue in Ridgefield, Saddle River Road in Fair Lawn and Washington Street in Lodi.

In the past year, Chase has closed branches in Glen Rock, Lyndhurst, North Arlington, Rutherford, Hackensack, Carlstadt and Hawthorne, while opening new ones in Old Tappan, Bergenfield and Franklin Lakes.

"It's about our customer activity," said Erich Timmerman, a Chase spokesman. Throughout the industry, branch traffic has been on the decline as customers rely more on online and mobile banking.

"We are doing what makes sense for each market," Timmerman said. As of June 30, Chase had 56 branches in Bergen County, according to a new government report, and despite having fewer branches than it had a year earlier, its share of deposits within the county increased to 9.9 percent from 9.41 percent a year earlier, Timmerman said.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s annual deposit market share reports, the latest of which was released Monday, show that Chase is not the only bank pruning branches.

As of June 30, the statewide total for all banks was 3,171, down about 2.2 percent from 3,241 in mid-2013, continuing a trend that began several years ago.

Bank of America had 298 New Jersey branches, 14 fewer than last year.

The North Carolina-based financial services giant remained the state's top deposit holder even as its deposit market share slipped to 15.65 percent from 16.1 percent.

No. 2 Wells Fargo had 303 branches, two fewer than it had in the 2013 tally, yet its share of the state's federally insured deposits edged up to 12.13 percent from 11.83 percent.

Of 148 banks that hold FDIC-insured deposits in New Jersey, nine of them, including Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, are designated as "systemically important," or, as some describe them, "too big to fail."

Those nine held $141.16 billion in New Jersey deposits at mid-year, or 49.3 percent of the total. That was up from 45.6 percent 12 months earlier.

The other systemically important banks that hold deposits in New Jersey are Citigroup, HSBC, Santander, Sumitomo Mitsui, Capital One and PNC.

The two largest banks based in North Jersey, Paramus-based Hudson City Savings and Wayne's Valley National Bank, lost some market share.

Hudson City's slipped to 5.77 percent statewide from 6.6 percent a year earlier while its statewide branch count remained the same at 97. Valley National had 162 New Jersey branches at midyear, seven fewer than it had a year earlier; its deposit share slipped to 3.06 percent from 3.11 percent.

Valley National, which plans to expand into Florida this year, has said it has been analyzing branch performance to improve cost efficiency amid declines in foot traffic. Valley recently notified the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency of its plans to close its Ho-Ho-Kus branch on Sycamore Avenue.

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