Banks in most of the Asia-Pacific region are closing branches and installing more ATMs to cut costs, according to the South China Morning Post.
A significant exception to this trend is Taiwan.
These findings are detailed in a survey published this month in the Singapore-based Asian Banker magazine.
According to the survey, Indonesian banks are leading the cost-cutting campaign, closing 414 branches over the past 18 months. ATMs are being used to fill the void. In the capital city of Jakarta, for example, there has been an 11.1 percent increase in the number of ATMs.
Yet ATM penetration in Indonesia remained one of the lowest in the Asian markets surveyed -- at just 27.8 ATMs per one million people, compared to the highest penetration rate of 878.9 per million in South Korea. Only China and India were lower.
At 218.4 branches per one million people, Hong Kong's bank branch network has changed little since the last survey in December 1998. The network ranked Hong Kong's extensive bank branches third behind Australia and the U.S. Hong Kong banks also expanded their ATM networks, lifting the penetration rate 1.85 per cent to 401.4 per one million people.
Singapore had just 119.7 branches per one million people and 530 ATMs per one million people. That's an 11.6 per cent reduction in branches and a 2 per cent reduction in ATMs. Asian Banker magazine attributed the decreases to a recent spate of bank mergers.
The same was true in Japan, where a reduction in both branches and ATMs could be traced back to major bank mergers.
Large increases in Taiwan of 6.8 per cent and 7.9 per cent respectively in the number of branches per one million (to 119.6), and ATMs per one million (to 629.8), reflected investments being made by domestic banks ahead of the island's expected entry into the World Trade Organization, said Asian Banker.
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