Wells Fargo keeps shrinking in Alaska, where it's the only bank in six towns

Wells Fargo is steadily pulling back from Alaska. Its latest move — a filing to close the Benson Boulevard branch in midtown Anchorage — would be the bank's ninth Alaska closure since 2019, and its fourth in less than a year.

That retreat carries a weight in Alaska it wouldn't in most states. In six Alaska communities, Wells Fargo isn't just a bank — it's the only bank in town: Utqiaġvik, Dillingham, King Salmon, Kotzebue, North Pole and Skagway. In places like those, separated from the next branch by long distances or no road at all, losing the local bank isn't an inconvenience. It can leave a whole community without one.

The Benson closure itself is a city problem, not a small-town one — three of the bank's four recent Alaska notices are in midtown Anchorage, which has plenty of other branches. The earliest the branch can close under federal law is Sept. 20. And customers are owed notice: the law requires a bank to tell account holders before it shuts a branch, so anyone banking at Benson who never got a letter has reason to ask why.

Even after nine closures, Wells Fargo still runs the largest branch network in Alaska and holds the biggest share of the state's deposits — more than 40 percent. This is a bank consolidating, not collapsing. But the direction is clear: nine branches gone in six years, while some competitors have grown. Northrim Bank, for one, has added branches over the same stretch.

Groups that watch branch access warn about the trend. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition says closures in places that already have few branches can create "branch deserts" — pushing people and small businesses toward costlier alternatives, and hitting hardest those without reliable transportation to reach the next bank over.

Wells Fargo hasn't said publicly why it's closing Benson, or why it's been shrinking in Alaska. The detailed reasons a bank must give the government aren't part of the public record.