Willie Sutton was a bank robber extraordinaire, a talented thief who made large withdrawals of money that wasn’t his from more than 100 banks before he died in 1980. When finally brought to the ground, Sutton was asked why he targeted these institutions. “Because that’s where the money is,” he replied, stating what to him seemed obvious.
Sutton would have loved the heavy concentration of banks and credit unions in Chittenden County and specifically a four-mile stretch of Route 7 from Shelburne Village to South Burlington. More than a dozen line the busy thoroughfare. It can seem like just about every building not related to automobiles — new and used car sales, auto parts, gas stations, car washes — is a place where the money is.
While most states have seen banks disappear faster than you can say “Blockbuster Video,” the Green Mountain State keeps adding branches. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than along Shelburne Road. NBT Bank opened a new full-service branch last year, down the road from where Union Bank opened one in 2021 and SeaComm the year before. A new Chase Bank just popped up like an overdraft charge along a parcel of Route 7 once home to a gas station and a Pizza Hut, and it’s within spitting distance of a cluster of four other banks orbiting a Burger King.
Which made us wonder: Why the proliferation of banks on Shelburne Road? And what do they say about banking in Vermont?
Not including credit unions, there are 24 local and national banks operating in our state, including approximately 219 branch offices, according to banking records. M&T Bank, based in Buffalo, N.Y., leads the pack with 36 branches; Community Bank, headquartered in DeWitt, N.Y., has 29; and TD, or Toronto Dominion, Bank (hello, Canada!) claims 20. Chittenden County is the Big Tree among the brick-and-mortar set, with dozens of branches serving a county with one-quarter of the state’s population.
Beyond Vermont, the 21st century is taking hold. It’s now possible to manage your finances without ever setting foot in a bank lobby. Consumers can do everything from opening checking accounts to buying cars and houses on their phones. Do you even know where — or what — your checkbook is?
State Banking Division Deputy Commissioner Aaron Ferenc toldSeven Days that a cashless society may be coming but, like an Apple Store, not soon to Vermont. “There’s a lot of new technologies that will continue to be developed,” he said, “which will make it easier for you to do certain things without having to go into a main bank or a branch.”
According to FDIC data, bank presence in the U.S. held basically steady for 50 years. Between 1935 and 1987, the number of FDIC-insured institutions never fell below 13,000 and never rose above the 1983 peak of 14,469. Back in those halcyon days, banks wooed new customers by offering them toasters or other small appliances.
Do you even know where — or what — your checkbook is?
Then things began to head downward. In the 10-year period from 1988 to 1998, the savings and loan crisis deposited roughly 5,000 banks in the trash heap. Within that decade, a third of the banks in the U.S. disappeared, dropping from 12,971 FDIC-insured institutions to 8,709.
There are now just over 4,000 banks left in the U.S. — 2,000 fewer than in 2012. If that same rate of loss were to continue, we’d be down to 2,000 before 2046. The number of bank branches would also shrink — from 70,000 or so today to less than 35,000.
“Technology has certainly brought a lot of convenience to banking,” said Scott D. Carpenter, who worked in Vermont banking for 42 years before retiring when he was senior vice president at People’s United Bank. But he added that Vermonters don’t want only digital options.
“They want to have it both ways,” Carpenter said. “They want the branch for the personal touch, but they like the speed and convenience [of online banking], too.”
Vermont’s rural nature partly explains why banks remain Main Street mainstays, Carpenter said. Because the population is so scattered, banks have to be sure there’s a branch nearby to serve people. Between inconsistent cell service and broadband deserts, online banking is hardly a universal option in the Green Mountain State. As Carpenter pointed out: “Not everyone in Vermont has a computer.”
In some rural enclaves, banks and credit unions are weavers of the community tapestry. They sponsor Little League baseball and other sports teams. They’re ubiquitous on sponsor T-shirts at marathons and bike rides. They’re also meetup places, akin to the post office or a coffee shop.
Lastly, as befitting a state famed for hardscrabble folk trying to make a living off the land, bankers here have adopted a more conservative approach to money matters. There have been few, if any, bank failures. “They’re not getting too far over their skis,” Carpenter said.
As for why so many banks on Shelburne Road, ask yourself this: What is the main thoroughfare through Vermont’s most populous and well-heeled county — northwestern Vermont’s Main Street? That’s right: Route 7, aka the Ethan Allen Highway, aka Shelburne Road north of the village. Banks build there because, to paraphrase Willie Sutton, that’s where the people are. And in a state with one of the most graying citizenries in the country, many of those people are old. Just behind all those banks are residential areas, including many retirement homes. And so aging Vermonters find banks on their doorstep — computer literacy not required.
In much of the rest of the country, there’s increasing evidence that banks will someday go the way of telephone booths. Even bank robberies have fallen off. In 2003, the U.S. saw 6,530 robberies of commercial banks. Twenty years later, that number had shrunk to 1,112.
Which raises the question: WWWD?
What would Willie do when he’s told that banks are no longer where the money is? ATMs for greenbacks. Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, Zelle and Cash App for money transfers. More and more people bank on these services, so banks just don’t keep a lot of cash these days.
“Cash in the vault is not an earning asset, so the banks can’t make money from it,” said Ferenc, the deputy commissioner. “So it’s a balancing act: They would like to keep cash at the right level [while] putting more into loans or investments.”
When I moved to Shelburne five years ago, I walked down to Route 7 and could see three banks from where I stood. They looked much the same, so I chose the one closest to my home. I don’t go to that bank often, and when I do, there are usually more tellers than customers in the lobby.
Outside, the drive-through ATM has a long queue. ➆
“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” is an occasional series that aims to answer puzzling questions about life in Vermont. Got a head-scratcher we should look into? Send it to wtf@sevendaysvt.com.
The original print version of this article was headlined “WTF | Why Do More and More Banks Keep Opening on Shelburne Road?”
This article appears in Money & Retirement Issue • 2026.
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