French bank Societe Generale has closed some of its branches for the summer lull this year as part of an experiment with reduced opening hours as Internet banking takes off, reports Reuters.
Banks across Europe are reducing branch networks to improve profitability in a weak economic environment and as the online banking boom accelerates the shift away from a traditional banking model.
Societe Generale, France's second-biggest listed bank, started a 6-to-8-months long experiment with opening hours in the first half of this year. The summer closures are a part of that, a spokeswoman at SocGen said.
The spokeswoman declined to give the number of branches involved or further details of the summer closures, but added that as part of the experiment, some may be closed for half days or closed completely through the summer in order to regroup forces at bigger sites.
Societe Generale's 3,161 branch network as of 2013 was already 2 percent smaller than in 2010. The number of online connections to its services has more than tripled over the last four years.
The number of clients who visited a French bank branch several times per month plummeted to 17 percent in 2013 from 52 percent in 2010, a survey by the country's banking association showed in May.
Read more of this report from Reuters.