The evolved architecture and design of high-street finance you can bank on

Retail bank branches have dwindled in the great digital evolution. But as these evolved branches prove, by focusing on comfort, personal service and human contact, physical finance can endure.

By Hadi Teherani, Emmanuelle Moureaux Architecture + Design, and James Wormald

March 14, 2023 | 11:00 pm CUT

DSK Bank’s Flagship Branch in Sofia, Bulgaria is set in a shopping mall and set out like a luxury retail experience, with cutting-edge design and technology. Photo: Minko Minev

Popping down to a high-street bank branch to pay in a cheque, get out some cash or even open an account are to-do list tasks of the past. With almost all financial services now available online and digital transactions taking more of the market share (up from 28% to 41% from 2019 to 2022), more and more retail branches are shutting up shop.

The complicated worlds of technology and finance continue to fill customers with confusion and dread

The complicated worlds of both technology and finance, however, continue to fill many customers with confusion and dread, so perhaps the friendly face of a physical bank storefront with actual humans still has a place. These evolved retail banking interiors hark back to a longed-for time when we knew our local bank manager’s name, but work in conjunction with technology to offer hybrid financial services alongside more personal advice, in comfortable and comforting surroundings.

The People’s Bank of the South’s redesign focused on traditional customer comfort, with mid-century soft leather seating and rich walnut surfaces. Photos: Sanders Pace & Jeffrey Jacobs Photography

Financial comfort

As a regional banking brand, for example, The People’s Bank of the South, in Jacksboro, Texas, US, didn’t have the weight or investment power of its international or even national competitors to quickly set up competitive online services. So the local brand decided instead, to do what local brands do best and focus on the customer. The branch uses deep, soft leather armchairs alongside warm brick and rich walnut surfaces to ‘focus on customer experience, and the interpersonal relationships formed between the bank and its community,’ explain architects Sanders Pace Architecture. The branch’s street presence was also improved with a border of translucent glass panels and uplighting, attracting new local customers as well as old.

Both Renasant Bank (top, middle) and DSK Bank (bottom) divide interior sections to offer hybrid digital and in-person financial services. Photos: Chad Mellon (top, middle), Minko Minev (bottom)

A personal banking service

After moving the bank closer to the corner to create a more approachable presence on the street, Renasant Bank in Memphis Tennessee, US, split its interior into three distinct zones, each specialising in different types of financial service. The restructure developed stronger banker/client relationships as ‘Universal Banker’ staff were able to lead customers through each step in turn.

Renasant Bank split its interior into three distinct zones, each specialising in different types of financial service

DSK Bank, meanwhile, brings new meaning to retail banking by locating its Flagship Branch in a shopping mall in Sofia, Bulgaria, and designing the interior like a high-end retail space. A wide, calm central area provides plenty of space for customers to enter and feel at ease, before taking to informational devices in self-service areas, or waiting for an open consultants’ desk for human help and consultation.

Sugamo Shinkin Bank’s four new branches combine colour, greenery, natural light and fresh air to serve customers with happiness. Photos: Daisuke Shima (top, bottom), Nacala & Partners (top, middle)

Biohphilic banking

Banks can be stressful places, where customers’ futures and livelihoods hang in the balance. Waiting areas and consultation rooms are awash with anxiety as hopeful or fearful occupants nervously learn their fate. Tasked with the redesign of four separate branches of Sugamo Shinkin Bank in Japan – Tokiwadai, Nakaaoki, Shimura and Ekoda – Emmanuelle Moureaux Architecture + Design developed an interior and exterior design concept based on nature, with expressive colours, greenery and access for natural light and air, thus responding to the bank’s brief to ‘provide first-rate hospitality to its customers in accordance with the motto: “we take pleasure in serving happy customers.”’

Bold primary colours and playful iconography bring joy to the Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Castaneto Carducci’s customer experience

Colourful optimism

The assumed requirement that financial service interiors feature subdued and neutral palettes to present an air of seriousness and professionalism while responsible for their customers’ money clearly found harsh criticism from architects Massimo Mariani, who redesigned a retail bank interior for the Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Castaneto Carducci in Donoratico, Italy, into a more joyful, celebratory environment.

With more money transfers happening digitally, the need for banks to house large and imposingly high-security vaults is reduced

Wooden pillars and walls in strips of bold primary colours flank an elongated corridor, surrounding loan management and administrative offices, while storage cabinets on the other side of the branch feature tongue-in-cheek symbolism, with stylised four-point vault wheel spokes forming the handles. ‘In this way, areas that in banks have been traditionally staid and bleak,’ explain Massimo Mariani, ‘have been reinvented to give them an amusing and more optimistic look.’

Safety-deposit box provider Trisor’s interior features circular ‘vault doors’ and luxury gold-hued surfaces, both bringing an association with high-security gold storage. Photos: Nick Frank

Symbolic security

With more of our money, and indeed entire currencies, solely existing in digital format, the need for banks to house large and imposingly high-security vaults is being reduced. But many bank customers still have other physical items that need protection. In steps the role of the safety-deposit box. While the Hadi Teherani-designed safety-deposit box provider Trisor uses an advanced digital security system to keep its customers’ valuables secure – instead of the traditional mechanical locking vault with oversized circular door, the space’s three vaults still feature highly evocative arched vault ‘doors’, presenting a trusted image that technology alone can not. The branch’s product and material palette of luxury furniture and lighting alongside gold-hued surfaces, meanwhile, give the secure space Federal Reserve vibes.

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