Malden bank manager charged with slow-motion bank robbery over several months

Remember the CapitalOne bank @ Park Street that took over the Finagle-a-bagel that had been there for eons. Its gone.

They open and close faster than Froyo shops these days. Great for dispensaries that want a vault in a few years.

I think its a tax thing.. or related to the whole TARP thing in 2008 when the credit card companies lost their shirts. Ever notice who's opening up branches left and right? It's not any of the incumbent banks like Sovereign or Citizens, even BoA. Its PNC Bank, Capital One Bank, CitiBank.. banks that never had a presence here before 2008.

And prior to 2008 were primarily known for their (crappy) credit card and loan offerings. Since at the time, TARP was restricted to banks that had physical branches, and not credit card companies, or rather former banks that had huge credit card divisions that pretty much took over their business, like Capital One. So they all lost their shirts and rapidly started expanding physical branches. To ensure that any future bailouts, etc would come to them.

It is 100% a tax cheat (its a losing venture because who goes into a branch these days) and a write off. All happening very quietly under regulators noses because technically what they are doing isn't wrong, its just a loophole.

I can't provide links to directly backup what I am saying but read up on "Ally Bank" (formerly GMAC financing) and Capital One's expansion post 2007. Amazing how they tripled locations in a few years, after spending over a decade in the 90s reducing their locations in their home region and expanding the CC division by a 2 fold.

I mean if this doesn't smell rotten.. and to happen to several of these 'banks' post-TARP, the coincidences are just too uncanny. Combined with basic knowledge of 'tax write offs' makes it obvious these branches are just these. And regardless, most credit cards now offer 'checking accounts', I get offers from Citi and Amex all the time now. They want to be seen as a bank.. not a credit card company.

Look at what happened with Silicon Valley Bank, they got help instantly because of depositors. If they were a credit card company it would have been like "good luck" from regulators and the fed.

All in all its just a scam. I know very few people who have banks outside of local institution thats been here for a while (including Citizens, BoA, and Sovereign), so there's no need to have so many branches. There's so many banks now, and many good local institutions.. why would anyone want to go to Citibank or CapitalOne, unless they travel alot, but even then that's negligible. So there is more to this than just 'servicing our customers'.. because there are none.

Branches are to some degree a marketing exercise -- people walking/driving by see a branch and are reminded or informed of the bank's brand/products. That's why they typically have advertisements in the windows. They also differentiate a traditional bank's offerings from a fintech company or banks that operate mostly online (like Discover Bank or USAA Bank or Ally, for example). Business customers often still need branches as well because they are taking cash as part of their business. And for things like lending -- both consumer and business -- there's still a fair bit of activity which happens in an office at the bank.

But banks are closing branches, too. Citi put a bunch of effort and money into opening branches in the Boston market back around 2008 and closed them all several years back. Webster Bank took over most of those locations and closed them recently too.