The Mittelbrandenburgische Sparkasse is the largest savings bank in East Germany. Now she wants to close 30 of her 141 branches. This is very worrying for many people, especially older people.
Filippo Smaldino is upset. The mayor of the Mühlenbeck community is proud of the fact that his community is constantly growing. More and more people are moving to the idyllic places between forests and lakes on the northern outskirts of Berlin. The Mittelbrandenburgische Sparkasse (MBS) has now announced that the savings bank will close here in August. And not only that: ATMs should also disappear.
For Smaldini, the matter is clear: his community is losing its attractiveness. He doesn’t understand why there shouldn’t be any potential for a branch in a growing community and why its citizens are denied the opportunity to easily get cash.
A place of exchange
50 kilometers south of Mühlenbeck in Wilhelmshorst near Potsdam, there is also a lack of understanding. The small town with 3,200 inhabitants discussed: It is said that older people in particular had problems getting money and doing their banking after the Sparkasse closed. 83-year-old Manfred Ramin points out that he can still drive a car now, but at some point he won’t. And the public transport in the neighboring town would simply run too infrequently.
His neighbor Beate-Susanne Sprenger adds that online banking cannot replace everything: “Of course it is also quality of life to go to the savings bank, to talk and to exchange ideas.” And another Wilhelmshorster complains that the center is being taken away from the town. A few years ago the pharmacy was closed and now the savings bank.
How the savings bank justifies the closures
Robert Heiduck from MBS knows all of these arguments against the branch closures. And he assures that it was not easy to make the decision. Nevertheless, it is the only way to make the Sparkasse fit for the future. It’s not about saving money or laying off employees. On the contrary: the company wants to invest.
There are various reasons for a thinning out of the branches. On the one hand, fewer and fewer people are coming to the small branches in the communities. Instead, the use of online offers is steadily increasing. Heiduck emphasizes: “75 percent of all our payment transactions take place online. Hardly anyone makes a paper transfer anymore.” The savings banks would also suffer from a shortage of skilled workers, so it makes sense to bundle the skills of the staff.
Longer distances for advice “reasonable”?
The model for the bank is anyway the “hybrid customer” – that is, people who do their banking partly online and partly in the branch. It is important to make them better offers. Simple things would then be done conveniently on a cell phone or computer. “For things that you don’t do every day – such as retirement provision, house financing – you need personal advice and we don’t want to get away from it. We rely on the trusting relationship with our customers. And for such discussions – once , twice a year – a slightly longer way to a branch is quite reasonable,” says Heiduck, explaining the Sparkasse’s strategy.
At the same time, investments are being made in the expansion of digital offers and video and telephone banking are being expanded. For older customers in particular, telephoning is a way of saving themselves the trip to a branch. In addition, there is also a “Sparkassenbus” that is on the road as a mobile branch in regions where the remaining branch network is too thin. Because even after the planned closure, MBS will otherwise have the densest branch network in the region compared to all other financial institutions.
services of general interest especially for older people
Mayor Smaldini in Mühlenbeck is not convinced. The MBS as a savings bank is an institution under public law, supported by districts and cities in Brandenburg. You have a different job than private competitors. “The Sparkasse’s code of ethics was, that’s how I’ve always understood it: we’re there for the smaller middle class, and we’re there for small and medium-sized businesses to make loans here.” It’s about public service, not business.
Since the information about the branch closure has been public, people have “run into him,” says Smaldini. Especially in the case of older citizens, there is “a tear” flowing. After all, there are very practical things that are missing if the nearest ATM is difficult to reach. “How is an old granny supposed to get a twenty for her grandchild and put it in for her birthday?”