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Northwest Savings Bank To Close Some Branch Banks

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Blame the cell phones, laptops, iPads and computers.

Online banking is taking another chunk out of retail branch banks.

"We took a hard look at our branch network, and I think a lot of us know that banking has changed pretty dramatically over the last several years," said Shawn Walker, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Northwest Savings Bank.

While not a huge presence in Pittsburgh, Northwest does have 20 retail banks in the region.

Northwest Savings has a 176 branch banks in four states. It is closing 24 branches, but it won't say yet exactly where. They say that they will save $5 million to $6 million a year, beginning in 2017.

So which branches will be closed?

Walker told KDKA money editor Jon Delano that the bank wants to alert their customers first.

"We'd like to have our customers receive notification from us first. We're not going to publish specifically a branch listing at this time," he said.

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"There will be some in the Pittsburgh area, but I would say it's nothing too dramatic."

System-wide, two of their current branches will be re-purposed as drive-in banks, and Walker says customers are not going to be inconvenienced.

"In most cases, we have a branch just down the street or a short distance away so we'll still be able to provide our customers a full-service location to bank."

While Northwest will lay off some employees in the branch closures, the Warren-based bank insists it has a good future here.

"Pittsburgh is extremely important to us, certainly as we grow from our original spot up in northwestern Pennsylvania," said Walker. "Certainly, Pittsburgh is a great urban location for us, and something we hopefully have a lot of promise in."

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