Banks are finding it more and more challenging to keep their brick and mortar branches profitable. Their customers make most operations online or using mobile apps and only rarely visit their local branches. However, brick and mortar banks can't suddenly close their doors because that's where most mortgages and complex investment products are sold.

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This is why banks are constantly trying to find new ways to, as they like to call it, redefine the role of their branches. Those ideas often include scrapping traditional cash services so that instead of performing simple tasks that the customers can manage themselves, bank employees can focus on selling loans, investment funds or insurance. Such branches still allow customers to withdraw and deposit cash, but only using ATMs and deposit machines.

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I decided to find out which of the banks operating in Poland already have cash free branches - with no registers and no clerks counting bills. I sent out a survey to about a dozen biggest banks on the Polish market. It turns out 11 have cash free branches at the moment. In total, there are over 200 of them. You can see detailed information in the table below.

As you can see, ING is the bank with the most cashier-free branches - it has almost 100 of them. Alior, Citi and BZ WBK also have a significant number. The banks with the least cash free branches - just one each - are Pocztowy, BGŻ BNP Paribas, Pekao and mBank. The last one adds that it also has approximately 100 mKiosks, which are also cash free. But those agencies are run by an external subsidiary and cannot be considered branches, which is why they are not included on the list. I’m curious to see how the cash free branch network develops in the future. I will try to make lists like that regularly in order to see what the trend is.