Citizens Bank To Streamline Its Branches

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Once wholly owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland, Citizens Bank is now becoming its own autonomous bank, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, and renamed Citizens Financial Group.

That means local customers can expect some changes in this region's second largest retail bank.

Bank officials told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Friday that Citizens plans to streamline its 127 branches in the Pittsburgh region to better position the bank for new ways of banking.

Streamlining the branches does not mean eliminating them, although many will be a little smaller with just one teller to serve Citizens Bank customers.

Instead, Citizens wants to double the number of mortgage loan officers and increase the number of financial advisers to get customers to buy more of the Bank's products.

In some respects, Citizens is following PNC's example where on-line and mobile banking is preferred over traditional face-to-face transactions.

The banking industry believes more customers than ever -- especially younger ones -- prefer faster, more convenient bank transactions from hand-held devices.

At the same time, Citizens wants to increase the number of mortgages it issues and that means training tellers and other employees to become mortgage loan officers and training others to become licensed to sell mutual funds and similar products.

The bank hopes the customers will like the changes to be implemented by the end of next year.

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