Florida a national leader in shuttering bank branches

Lakeland-Winter Haven, despite a decade-long population surge, lags in one distinct metric among the largest 100 metro areas nationwide: It has lost the highest percentage of bank branches over the past 10 years.  

And according to a new report on the decline in bank branches, the Lakeland-Winter Haven area, thanks to a 19% population increase from 2008-2018, had 40% fewer banks per 100,000 residents. That’s also tops nationally, according to the report, from BankDepsoits.com, a unit of LendingTree. The report analyzed Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data.