Putting the US in U.S. Bank

Alright, here's a little something that's been chafing me lately. I'm a proud account holder at U.S. Bank (NYSE: USB), the sixth-largest bank in this country and the owner of 2,769 bank branches. Granted, I signed up for my account when I arrived in Portland in the spring of 2006, but having seen those banks everywhere when I was at Miami, I didn't think anything of it. I certainly thought that considering it was called "U.S." Bank, as in the Bank that serves the U.S., they'd have way more branches than some of the small local options I had in Portland.

So naturally you can imagine my dismay when I needed to do some basic banking after the Christmas holiday. I hop on to my friendly U.S. Bank website to do a location search, and the closest bank branch? Oak Harbor, Ohio. That's right, the same Oak Harbor that is 26.88 miles from Perrysburg and has a massive population of 2,841 (as of the 2000 census, so I'm sure it's more like 2,844 now).

My first thought was: How could a bustling metropolis like Toledo (population 295,029) have 0 locations when Oak Harbor even has one? What kind of U.S. is this bank serving? An intelligent family member pointed out that U.S. Bank may have bought whatever local bank used to exist in Oak Harbor, but considering Toledo is at least in the top 200 metro areas in the U.S., I still can't believe there isn't a single one of the 2,769 branches in the area.

Oh well, in the meantime I'm stuck driving out to Oak Harbor if I ever need to do any banking in my hometown. I'm somewhat consoled that even if I had gone for an even more seemingly obvious bank, "Bank of America," my closest option? Alexis Rd.

I think I'll stick with the home of Davis-Besse.