A Senate inquiry into regional and rural bank closures will begin in Victoria on Thursday.
Australian’s major banks are shutting down more branches across the country and have been accused of not caring about their customers.
NAB has announced branches at Jeparit and Inverloch in Victoria will close in July.
Meanwhile, branches at Boonah in Queensland and Queanbeyan, NSW will also be shut down in July.
The Finance Sector Union (FSU) is calling on the major banks to stop closing bank branches in metropolitan and regional areas while a Senate Inquiry into Regional Branch Closures is underway.
FSU National Secretary Julia Angrisano said NAB was refusing to pause regional branch closures.
“The NAB’s behaviour is outrageous and completely out of step with community expectations and in breach of its social license,” she said.
Commonwealth Bank is also shuttering branches with at Bull Creek in WA and Aspley in Qld set to close down in June.
ANZ has also revealed Clarkson in WA, Patterson Lakes in Victoria and Lane Cove in NSW will be shut down with the loss of 15 jobs in June.
Both the CBA and ANZ have committed to pausing regional closures while the Senate inquiry is ongoing.
“The major banks are making massive profits and yet they continue to shut down branches and they don’t care about customers and businesses who are impacted by these closures,” Ms Angrisano said
“The morale of bank workers is at rock bottom as they wait to hear if their branch and their job is on the hit list.
“The FSU believes the banks should be compelled to pause all closures, in metropolitan and regional areas, while the Senate Inquiry is underway.
“All Australians deserve to have access to the full range of financial services no matter where they live.”
“Our customers now have banking technology at their fingertips, through their device and more than 93 per cent of customer transactions now take place online. Very few people are visiting a branch, regularly or at all,” she said
“We acknowledge that big change is not always easy and reshaping our branch network sometimes requires difficult decisions.
“These decisions are made with the community and our customers in mind while also taking into account a broad range of factors like the number of customers visiting our lower traffic branches, our ability to staff our branches and how we ensure a consistent level of customer service in person and online.”
She added there are no job losses with people offered alternative roles within the bank.
“NAB will work constructively with the Senate Committee Inquiry. We will be continuing our branch reshaping process during the Committee’s deliberations in 2023, which will include closures, consolidations and new investments to meet our customers’ needs,” she noted.
A CBA spokesperson said customer demand at its Bull Creek and Aspley branches had progressively declined, and after a recent review, the bank made the difficult decision to permanently close these branches.
“When considering closing a branch, we take a range of factors into account. Central to this is ensuring our customers continue to have access to banking services following a closure, including through our own channels, or via Bank@Post. For these two branches, customers can continue to access multiple nearby CBA branches,” they said.
“We’ve redeployed the vast majority of staff from branches that have closed, and work closely with our people to support securing appropriate comparable roles suitable to their needs. There are no job losses as a result of these two metropolitan closures.”
An ANZ spokesperson said for some time now Australians have been changing the way they choose to bank.
“Over the past four years, we’ve seen in-branch transactions decrease by more than 50 per cent across ANZ. Only eight per cent of our customers solely rely on branches for their everyday banking needs, with the majority preferring online and mobile banking methods,” they said.
“We have written to our customers at these locations to advise them of the change and our alternative services available. These include specialist teams that can assist them when convenient for them, like mobile lenders or our small business specialists.”
More and more Aussie towns now have no bank and it’s causing huge issues for thousands of Australians.
People are being forced to drive up to $200,000 in cash thousands of kilometres while vulnerable customers are handing over sensitive bank account details to library staff – that’s the dire reality facing Aussie towns with a number set to lose their last remaining bank branch.
Residents of a booming outback Queensland mining town were also furious at the “disgraceful” decision by Westpac to close its branch there, amid warnings regional bank closures are reaching “crisis” levels.
According to the Finance Sector Union, bank branch closures are reaching “crisis point” with the big four closing more than 550 bank branches across Australia since January 2020.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said 575 regional banks closed between mid-2017 and mid-2021.