There’s all kinds of change in the air around Harvard Square these days, with the opening of two more bank branches.

In an attempt to cash in on the Square’s bustling student population and heavy foot traffic, Citizens Bank and Sovereign Bank will open branches this year in prime commercial storefronts.

This move brings the banks to the brink of ubiquity and has caused some Square businessmen to worry.

In late November, Citizens will open a two-story, 12,000-square-foot branch in the shop that Abercrombie & Fitch vacated last June. Early next year, Sovereign Bank will open a two-story branch in the empty storefront between CVS and Fleet Bank.

For the two chains, it’s an attempt

to go where their customers go.

“Ten years ago [people expected] that online banking would take things over and people wouldn’t need banks,” said Barbara Cox, the marketing director for Cambridge Savings Bank, which has its headquarters in the Square. “That has not been true.”

“If you read any industry journal there has been a large expansion in brick and mortar [locations],” she said.

The Square will be home to eight banks—Sovereign, Citizens, Cambridge Trust, Wainwright, Harvard University Employees Credit Union, and Fleet, soon to be Bank of America.

Forty ATMs will cluster in the two-block area of the Square bound by Church St., Mt. Auburn St., Mass. Ave., and Plympton St.

The banks are all running after student accounts because they offer the lucrative opportunity potential for life-long customers.

“Our goal is to grow with you,” said Ronald L. Walker II, the executive vice president of consumer banking at Sovereign Bank. “[You] can move right to the elite checking account.”

David Connell, the regional manager for Citizens said that the number of tourists in the Square would enable so many banks to survive in such close-quarters.

“That four mile radius attracts 2.5 million tourists annually. [It] has the highest concentration of graduate students. [There] are 375 small businesses,” he said.

But several local business leaders have expressed concern that prime commercial real estate is being grabbed by businesses that will be open for only limited hours.