FINANCIAL INDUSTRY Bankers' hours increase to cover every day of week

The growing number of branches has made banking more competitive.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- So much for bankers' hours. Even with convenient ATMs and 24-hour Internet account access, more banks are opening branches Sundays in what analysts say is an increasingly fierce competition for retail customers.
Citizens Bank said this week it will hire more tellers to keep 150 Philadelphia-area branches open seven days a week starting Sunday, up from 50 branches now offering seven-day-a-week hours.
Citizens, part of the Providence, R.I.,-based Citizens Financial Group, has been expanding vigorously into the region.
The $64.4 billion Royal Bank of Scotland subsidiary bought 345 former Mellon bank branches in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey for $2.1 billion in 2001, and raised its profile in June with a $57.5 million deal to name the Phillies' new ball field Citizens Bank Park.
Adding jobs
"Serving our customers by opening all of our area branches every day of the week was a natural next step," Stephen D. Steinour, chief executive officer, said in a news release announcing the expanded hours. He said 250 new jobs were being added to keep the doors open longer.
Scott Alaniz, a bank analyst for Samco Capital Markets in Dallas, said a spate of bank branch building has led to tougher competition for customers nationally.
"We're sort of at the point where those types of activities are starting to build momentum," Alaniz said. "It's Retailing 101."
Branches have proliferated as bank profits have risen over the last three or four years, helped by a mortgage refinancing boom fueled by low interest rates, Alaniz said.
"Even though with mergers and acquisitions the number of banks has gone down, the number of branches has increased," American Bankers Association spokeswoman Tracey Mills said. "It's part of an overall trend of banks focusing on retail customers, expanding the number of branches, and branches in convenient locations such as grocery stores."
Only days closed
Commerce Bancorp 250 branches in southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware and the New York City area are open every day except Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving and Easter, said David Flaherty, spokesman for the Cherry Hill, N.J.,-based company.
"Just as Home Depot or Starbucks or Wal-Mart provide services, we provide banking services when it's convenient for our customers, patterning ourselves after the country's must successful retail businesses," Flaherty said.
PNC Bank is another bank offering seven-day banking in 34 branches, including 26 in southeastern Pennsylvania, and Sovereign Bancorp offers seven-day banking in at least a dozen Philadelphia-area branches, representatives of the banks said.
Nationally, a recent ABA survey showed that 53 percent of large banks, with $1 billion or more in assets, offer Sunday hours at their branches in stores, such as supermarkets, and 18 percent offer Sunday hours in freestanding branches, Mills said.
Among midsize banks, with $500 million to $999 million in assets, 22 percent offer Sunday hours at in-store branches and 9 percent in freestanding branches.
Among community banks, with less than $500 million in assets, 6 percent have Sunday hours at in-store branches and 3 percent at freestanding branches, the ABA survey showed.