The banking industry has seen branch footprints shrink nationwide over the past several years as customers go mobile.
But South Carolina is going against that trend as the state had the highest number of new bank branch openings in the country last year, with seven new branches, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
South Carolina is just one of four states that had positive net bank branches between 2020-2021, where the number of openings outpaced the number of closings.
Despite shutting down 334 facilities nationwide since January 2020, JPMorgan Chase & Co. added 222 new branches in the same time period, according to the S&P data. This includes expanding into South Carolina.
This growth into the Carolinas, including Charleston, was announced in 2019 as part of a statewide $20 billion, five-year investment in its business and local economic growth.
