interesting question, page-7

Rebel .

Maybe you should reread my post . Yes , it is prime real estate .

But , banks aren't in the real estate business ( not directly anyway ) , they're in the business of handling money and charging fees for the privilege .

Sure , you may as well own your own building ( just like a house ) if you can . I'm sure there's cost savings there .

However , if you have to borrow money to lend to others , you can only charge so much. If you can provide those funds yourself , then you might make more out of it .

Remember , banks aren't selling their head office buildings ( as far as I know ) , only the branches . In their longer term modeling , I'm sure they have a plan for this . Certainly a greater online presence . Maybe they will move to major shopping centres . After all , that's where the people go . Shopping centres are expanding , shopping strips are shrinking .

Also , if there are any commercial accountants here they might be able to explain the cost of having capital tied up and how that restricts a business . All large companies I know of do this so there must be some pretty good reasons.