Most branch conversations still treat the branch as separate from the "real" channel strategy, a legacy cost center to be managed down, or an existing approach to be defended. The real question isn't whether the branch survives, it's whether it's designed as one component of a single channel strategy or bolted on beside it.

This roundtable pushes past the "branches still matter" consensus into where banks are challenged to integrate the branch into the broader channel design, particularly the hand-off point where a customer starts digitally and finishes in person, or vice versa. That gap usually starts inside the org chart: whether branch and digital report to the same strategy team, with shared budget and shared KPIs, or answer to two separate ones entirely.