Banks closing branches and ATMs in South Africa — with an exception

All except one of South Africa’s prominent brick-and-mortar banks have reduced their automated teller machine (ATM) footprints in recent years. At the same time, most have also significantly decreased the number of branches in their networks.

Capitec is the only institution to significantly increase its ATM footprint since 2019, with its ATM network expanding by 3,787 by February 2025.

Over the same period, Capitec has also increased the number of branches in its network from 857 to 880.

Only one other bank — FNB — has increased its branch footprint since 2019, adding five retail outlets to its network by June 2024.

However, the FirstRank-owned institution shuttered 1,010 ATMs over the same period.

Traditional South African banks are reducing their ATM and branch networks as they come under pressure from digital upstarts and as people increasingly bank online.

Standard Bank recently revealed that in-branch transactions had fallen 13% in the first half of the 2024/25 financial year to around 2.5 million.

“Online transactions increased by 30% to 1.5 billion transactions with Standard Bank clients performing an average of 10,400 digital transactions per month, compared to just 0.017 transactions in branches,” it said.

It added that it had reduced branch square meters by 4% to just under 240,000m². However, it noted that it hadn’t reduced the number of access points available to customers.

The reduction was equivalent to roughly eight Ellis Park rugby stadiums. Standard Bank said it actively planned the reductions to adapt to shifting banking habits over the past five years.

As a result, the number of branches available to Standard Bank customers has reduced by 32 between 2019 and 2024, and it has shuttered the highest number of ATMs at 3,759.

Nedbank has also reduced its branch footprint, reducing its network of outlets by 46 between 2019 and 2024. It has also closed several ATMs across the country.

However, its 58 ATM closures are significantly less than some other major brick-and-mortar banks.

Customers switching to online banking

Nedbank told MyBroadband that the number of clients using its digital channels increased by 9% since 2023, while its digital financial servicing volumes grew by 19%.

“We have seen a corresponding decrease in our in-branch volumes over the same period,” it said.

These reductions result from the growing adoption of digital banking solutions, such as online, mobile, and USSD banking.

Absa saw its branch network decrease by 16 outlets between 2019 and 2024. Over the same period, it shuttered 3,518 ATMs, the second-highest number of ATM closures among South African banks.

Overall, the combined bank branch additions and closures have resulted in a reduction of 65 brick-and-mortar outlets across all banks compared.

Regarding ATMs, Absa, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank had a combined total of 33,025 ATMs in 2019.

This figure has since dropped to 28,467 — a net loss of 4,558 ATMs across the five banks.

The table below compares changes in the number of ATMs and branches managed by prominent South African banks from 2019 to their latest annual results.

Capitec’s latest available annual results are for the 2024/25 financial year, while the rest are for their respective 2023/24 financial years. Reductions are highlighted in red while additions are shown in green.