Value Over Volume: Jeff Lewis on U.S. Bank's Branch Philosophy

Jeff Lewis leads a big piece of a big bank: 10 western states, roughly 600 branches, and 3,500 small business and retail bankers for U.S. Bank, the fifth-largest FI in the United States with just under 2,100 branches across 26 states.

At BankSpaces, he offered a look inside how one of America's largest branch networks thinks about the marriage of physical and digital.

His framing was simple: regardless of institution, "we're here to build trust," he said.

Digital adoption is accelerating — and U.S. Bank embraces it — but customers still want deeply personal connections with branch teams. At moments of uncertainty, people want to say, "There's my bank, right there on the corner," and walk in, he said. Customers have been clear: they don't want digital or physical.

They want both.

Millennials Are in Your Lobby

Think younger generations have abandoned the branch? Umm, nope.

In the 90 days prior to Lewis’s talk, 23% of U.S. Bank's branch visits came from millennials. Transactional traffic might be waning, but conversations — about wealth, mortgages, small business loans — are growing, he said. Hence the proposition Lewis returned to throughout his session: "Branches aren't about volume anymore. They're about value."

That realization is reshaping the bank’s physical footprint. U.S. Bank is investing about $20 million annually in renovations — 40 branches updated in 2025 in Lewis's region alone, concentrated in Portland, Ore. and Denver — with cafés, community rooms, open floor plans, and teller lines giving way to two stations and transactions migrating to private office spaces.

A greeter-led "branch choreography" welcomes each client, learns why they've come in, and connects them to the right banker or advisor. Traditional branch layouts were designed for security, with the big teller line silently whispering to the client: don't come back.

Technology has eliminated most of that, Lewis said, in service of one simple goal: making meaningful conversations easier to have.

Technology That Extends a Human Touch

Two tools stood out. US Bank’s Co-browse lets a customer keep their own phone in hand — "it's creepy taking someone else's phone," Lewis joked — while the banker sees their screen and guides them with an on-screen cursor through tasks like checking a credit score or setting up recurring payments. It works in-branch or over the phone.

Video banking connects customers at home with bankers at their local branch. Add ITMs and teller cash recyclers, and the philosophy is consistent: simple tasks stay digital, and technology extends — never replaces — the human connection.

One stat underscored why: accounts opened in the branch are significantly more valuable than those opened online, even as volume trends digital.

Universal Bankers and What Comes Next

In Q&A, Lewis described U.S. Bank's shift to a universal banker model five years ago. Most branches no longer have tellers, and thoughtful career coaching helped hesitant tellers become phenomenal bankers, he said.

The bank has also stripped operational burden from the front line, from signature card audits to simplified wires, so bankers can focus on clients. Data-driven scheduling and an innovative queuing system round out the toolkit, because when two people face a deep line, "conversations probably aren't happening."

The road ahead is expansion: after right-sizing its footprint, U.S. Bank is growing again through renovation and de novo activity in growth markets like Phoenix, Boise, Denver, and Seattle — with CEO Gunjan Kedia asking questions about the branch, Lewis said, "with a level of curiosity I haven't seen for (a long) time."