At BankSpaces in Bonita Springs, senior retail banking and credit union leaders pulled back the curtain on a shared headache: their aging branch networks. In this behind-closed-doors conversation, they shared challenges, hard-won solutions, and a few uncomfortable truths about what it actually takes to modernize physical banking locations at scale.
Whether you're a nine-branch community bank in Pennsylvania or a global FI with thousands of locations, it turns out the challenges are largely the same.
Across the 70,000+ bank branches in the US alone, a significant chunk haven't been meaningfully touched in 10, 20, or even 30 years. The pressure to change that is real — but so is the friction to do so.
M&T Bank's reality check came after acquiring People's United Bank, adding roughly 350 branches to its network.
"We skinned them," an M&T participant said, describing a light-touch rebrand. "But there's still so much more to be done."
First Citizens Bank went from seven corporate offices to 54 following its SVB acquisition. "We like pretty things," one of their reps said, "but classical design is not always economical."
A common refrain: everyone knows what needs to happen. Execution is another story.
One of the session's most practical threads: how do you justify the investment to finance-focused executives who want numbers, not renderings?
First Citizens Bank uses NPV modeling to evaluate every proposed renovation, projecting expected growth in deposits, loans, and foot traffic. A representative from Huntington Bank pointed to a tool called Precisely, which models the expected return of a given market based on branch size and condition.
"We put a lot of trust in that modeling," he said. "If we're going to put $2-3 million into this remodel, what can we expect in return?"
Visuals help too. One participant described showing their CFO before-and-after shots of exterior renovations. He wasn't a fan of the investment — until he saw the before. "He said, 'That's not our brand,'" they recalled, "and you could see it click."
There's also the flip-side risk that rarely gets mentioned: refresh a branch and some customers will question how you're spending their money. Credit unions, in particular, have to walk that line carefully. "We can't do the glitzy walls," said one credit union rep. "But on the other hand, you don't want members walking into somewhere with worn-through carpet either. That doesn't build confidence."
Toward the end of the session, the conversation turned to what smart design actually looks like when you're building for the long haul — not the next trend cycle.
Modularity kept coming up: walls that can be repositioned, pods reconfigured, glass refreshed with new graphics. "If we reposition some fixtures and do the right paint, it looks like a brand-new space," said one participant.
Scotiabank's team shared their philosophy of staying deliberately timeless. "We didn't get into the whole gray moment," their designer said. "I was like, 'Oh my gosh, everything is gray, we're never going to get through this.' I think we're on the other side now."
Their approach: neutral base, brand expression through screens, artwork, and accents.
The group landed roughly here: five to seven years for finishes and cosmetic updates, 10 to 15 for major renovations. "If you're changing that much every five to seven years," one person noted, "you can't keep up with yourself."
A standout theme was the universality of pain points. A $500M credit union in Iowa and a bank operating across Latin America are both wrestling with the same questions. How do you modernize without losing what made the institution feel like home? How do you prove the ROI? How do you design something that holds up for a decade?
"It's amazing," the moderator said as time ran out. "The challenges are all the same."