First Commonwealth to close bank branches

First Commonwealth Bank will close around 20% of its 148 physical branches before the end of the year.

The planned closures are part of a cost-cutting initiative implemented, said the Indiana, Pa.-based bank’s CEO, Mike Price, with “the express goal of emerging on the other side of the pandemic stronger than ever.”

After taking a severe hit in the first quarter, the bank’s finances showed improvement in the second-quarter report released Wednesday. At 24 cents per share in earnings vs. 5 cents in the first quarter, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jim Reske described it as a strong rebound.

“Although we’re in the early innings of the economic recession, we’re pleased with the projections from our second quarter,” he said.

First Commonwealth isn’t the only bank consolidating branches because of the pandemic. Major Downtown-based bank PNC also set a goal ofclosing close to 100 of its 2,459 branches by the year’s end, and Delaware-based WSFS

its 2,459 branches by the year’s end, and Delawarebased WSFS Financial Services plans to close 25 branches owned by its subsidiaries.

According to the secondquarter report, the First Commonwealth earnings per share came in at more than double the projected income of 9 cents per share for the quarter, although results were still down significantly from last year’s second quarter.

First Commonwealth’s second-quarter revenue this year totaled $88.9 million, down 14.5% from the same quarter in 2019. Net income of $23.9 million was down almost 13% from the same quarter a year ago.

In a conference call with analysts Wednesday, Mr. Price said First Commonwealth was generally pleased with the results.