Santander Bank to close four of its 28 Connecticut branches in August

Santander Bank is closing four of its 28 branches in the state, including one in New Haven County, according to a federal agency that charters, regulates and supervises all national banks.

Bank officials told the federal Office of the Comptroller of Currency they are closing branches in Plainville, Farmington, East Windsor and Waterbury on Aug. 6.

Santander has a branch on East Main Street in Waterbury, in addition to the one at 184 Chase Ave. that is closing.

The closing of the four branches is not a prelude to a full-scale withdrawal from the state by Santander, according to a statement by Kerri Beliveau, the bank’s district executive.

“I want to emphasize that we are not exiting Connecticut by any means — we are only consolidating branches,” Beliveau said. “Like many industries, our customers’ preferences and behaviors are shifting, with more customers choosing to bank with us online. In response to these changes, we are reducing the number of our branches and increasing our investment in digital capabilities, as well as other products and services that are in line with the evolving needs of our customers.”

Santander, which is based in Spain, broke into the Connecticut market when it acquired Pennsylvania-based Sovereign Bank in 2009. Sovereign had bolstered its Connecticut presence in 1999 when it acquired 278 Fleet and BankBoston branches, including some in Connecticut that those two banks had to sell off to satisfy anti-trust concerns as a result of their merger.

The Sovereign branches took on the Santander name in 2013. Santander’s U.S. banking operations are based in Boston.

The Connecticut banking industry has seen the pace of branch closings that started a decade ago gain momentum.

Over the last decade, the number of bank branches in the state has dropped by 201 locations, for an overall closure rate of 16 percent, according to John Carusone, president of the Bank Analysis Center, a Hartford-based industry consulting firm. The national closure rate over the same period was 6 percent, Carusone said earlier this year.

In late December 2020, Webster Bank announced it was closing 16 branches in the state, including offices in Cheshire, Bethany and Hamden. Those closings occurred earlier this spring. Webster and some of the other banks that have announced branch closings since then use savings from the branch closures to offering more mobile banking options.