A U.S. Bank executive wants to double the super-regional lender’s branch presence in the Charlotte, North Carolina, market, as the bank seeks to dig deeper in the South. 

The lender opened its seventh Charlotte branch Wednesday in the city’s South End neighborhood; its first branch in the city opened in 2019, said Sekou Kaalund, head of branch and small business banking at the Minneapolis-based bank.

Noting the “tremendous” population and business growth the city has seen, “we want to be a part of that story,” said Kaalund, who joined U.S. Bank in 2022 from JPMorgan Chase. Charlotte, now the 14th-largest city in the country, has added an average of 17,197 people each year since 2020, The Charlotte Observer reported earlier this year. 

U.S. Bank plans to open its next Charlotte-area branch in the suburb of Matthews, in 2026. That location will have a wealth team on site.

“We do have a strong desire to continue to build out branches here,” Kaalund said in an interview Wednesday. “I won't give a time frame, but certainly we want to be at double the number we are today, at some point.” 

To get there, Kaalund’s team is assessing opportunities and reviewing where there’s need for another branch, based on population growth, new or existing development and customer driving times. 

“We want to have a broader portfolio that gives us the density to serve the city, so that people are within a driving distance to the branch,” he said.

The $686 billion-asset bank, which has about 2,100 branches across 26 states, declined to provide any specific goals as far as branch market share within a certain time frame after opening, or how quickly branches are projected to become profitable. 

Kaalund noted the lender has a “scorecard,” considering deposit and loan growth compared to initial branch goals as well as the customer activities branch staff are engaging in and the foot traffic the branch is seeing.  

U.S. Bank counts about 60,000 retail customers, including 5,000 business clients, in the Charlotte market, Kaalund said. The lender has about 1,400 employees in the city, which it’s designated a hub market, and recently doubled its commercial banking presence in the city, to serve businesses with annual revenue between $2.5 million and $25 million.

Other new branches have opened recently in Nashville, Tennessee; Chicago; and Phoenix, Arizona; and U.S. Bank is renovating about 300 branches across its footprint this year, he said.

“The death of the branch has been exaggerated for about 30 years,” Kaalund said. “It's not the death of the branch; it's the evolution of the branch.”

Replacing several teller lines, the new branch configuration “reflects how customers want to engage,” he said. In the 2,700-square-foot branch in Charlotte, there are two customer service stations that can handle traditional transactions and offices for more in-depth conversations. A co-browsing capability allows bank staff to show customers how to handle tasks on the bank website or mobile app. 

“The opportunity is to really be these advice centers, but still service those customers that want to come in and cash their check,” he said.

For customers, the awareness of a bank’s physical presence holds value, particularly in times of financial challenge or volatility, he said. “What we find is, branches matter a lot, even from the psychology,” Kaalund said.

The organic growth push is key for U.S. Bank, executives have indicated. CEO Gunjan Kedia last year referenced the bank’s desire to buy a Southeast lender to more quickly grow its presence in the region, but later walked back those comments, emphasizing the bank is uninterested in acquisitions, favoring organic expansion instead. 

Yet the region’s population growth has made the Southeast increasingly competitive, as a number of banks seek to snag more business in markets where their customers have flocked. Charlotte, in particular, is a major banking center, as the home of Bank of America and Truist; San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is also one of the city’s largest employers. 

As U.S. Bank celebrated its branch opening Wednesday, Truist announced plans to open 100 new branches and renovate about 300 in high-potential markets. Fifth Third and Huntington are among the regionals gunning for growth in the Southeast. Meanwhile, the biggest U.S. bank, JPMorgan Chase, opened a milestone branch in Charlotte in July. 

“You want to compete where there are great competitors, right?” Kaalund said. “Some of the banks that have been headquartered here, obviously, they have tremendous presence.”

For U.S. Bank, that means every client engagement has to be differentiated, “so that they bank with us, and that their families bank with us, and that they're referring people,” Kaalund said. “It causes us to make sure we're bringing our A game, all of the time.”