The branch rollout never ends 01 November 2007 5:42PM John Kavanagh St George Bank added nine new branches during the year to September, taking the total to 399. The biggest increase was in Western Australia, where branch numbers increased from three to eight.There was one new branch opening in New South Wales, taking the number to 201. In South Australia, where St George owns BankSA, the number was steady at 109.The bank was down a branch in Victoria, falling from 38 to 37.For the benefit of the sceptics, who wonder why there is so much investment in branches when 40 per cent of bank customers say they never go into them, St George provided some branch metrics in yesterday's financial statement. The value of assets per branch rose from $274 million to $315 million. And the net profit per branch rose from $2.68 million to $2.97 million - an increase of 10.8 per cent.