In a global survey Bain, a consultancy, found that 95% of consumers plan to use digital banking post-pandemic. And banks, which had already been planning to shrink their physical footprint, are closing branches more quickly than they had envisaged. Brazilian lenders have shut down 1,500 this year, 7% of the total stock. Those in Europe are planning to slash 2,500 branches.

Dirk Vater of Bain sees a strong link between a bank’s digital performance and how badly it was hit by the financial crisis of 2007-09. European banks, burdened by dud loans and low interest rates, spent the 2010s cutting costs rather than investing in transformation.