Banks are contracting their retail branches for the first time since 2002, according to research firm SNL Financial. After a decade of visibly aggressive expansion that pushed the number of bank branches up more than 15 percent nationwide, their parent corporations are reining things in. In particular, JPMorgan Chase and PNC Financial Services Group, which have each swallowed up the operations of smaller financial institutions since the downturn began, are closing hundreds of branches in order to limit overlap. But they’re not the only ones. With profits down and cost-cutting on the agenda, many banks that have survived the recession are becoming reluctant to spend the $1 million it typically costs to build new brick-and-mortar locations, which tend not to turn a profit for at least two years after opening. Birmingham, Ala.-based Regions Financial is closing 121 branches in the first quarter of this year in a move that should save $21 million per year. JPMorgan had 5,154 branches nationwide at the end of 2009, a 5.9 percent decline from a year earlier. Still, while it’s contracting on the whole, the bank is homing in on underserved areas: a slew of Florida Blockbuster stores are currently being converted to JPMorgan branches. [WSJ]

Last year’s Bank of America merger with Merrill Lynch may have resulted in a tangle of litigation, but it also produced a flood of real estate investment banking profits that may have made it worth the headaches. In 2009, the bank used its relationships with borrowers to generate investment banking work and in doing so managed to pull way ahead of its competitors in underwriting stock offerings by commercial real estate firms. Refugees from Merrill stayed on hand to handle the booming caseload. This year, Bank of America is looking to help even more private real estate companies take the plunge into public markets. “We have lists of companies that we think are good candidates for the public market, and we’re proactively reaching out to them,” said Jeffrey Horowitz, head of Bank of America’s real estate investment banking division in the Americas, who was formerly with Merrill. According to SNL Financial, Bank of America is a lead lender to 53 Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs, which is more than any other bank, and according to Dealogic, it earned $208 million in fees from REIT equity offerings last year. JPMorgan Chase, in second place, earned a little more than half of that. [WSJ]