07 June 2024

The European Central Bank (ECB) has updated its dataset of structural financial indicators for the banking sector in the European Union (EU) for the end of 2023. This annual dataset comprises statistics on the number of offices and employees of EU credit institutions, data on banking sector concentration in each Member State and data on foreign-controlled institutions operating in the EU.

The structural financial indicators show a further decline in the number of bank offices in the EU, averaging 3.09% across Member States. Decreases were observed in 24 of the 27 countries, ranging from -0.17% (Spain) to -12.46% (Belgium). The total number of offices in the EU was 129,418 at the end of 2023, of which 82.2% were located in the euro area.

In the course of 2023, the number of bank employees fell in 15 of the 27 Member States (Chart 1), with an average drop of 0.81% across all countries. The decline in the number of bank employees observed in most Member States since 2008…