Enraged locals face $20,000 cash charge as 'disgraceful' banking trend sweeps Australia: '64 kilometres away'

Yahoo

a day ago

The Victorian town of Yarram will be left without a bank branch next month when Bendigo Bank closes its doors. The South Gippsland farming community is one of five Aussie towns that will no longer have access to in-person banking by late October.
David Phelan, director of livestock and property agency Phelan & Henderson & Co, is one resident who is fighting against the branch closure. The 73-year-old told Yahoo Finance he was one of the branch's biggest customers, with his business turning over $25 million last financial year.
'It's a disgrace,' he said.
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The Bendigo Bank branch is the last remaining bank in the town. It was previously home to all of the Big Four banks, with Commonwealth Bank the last of the majors to close its doors in 2021.
Phelan said he shifted his accounts to Bendigo Bank after this closure and had encouraged other residents to do the same.
'[I said] if we all go to the Bendigo, they can't possibly afford to leave. However, I was wrong,' he said.
When the branch closes on September 26, the nearest Bendigo Bank will be in Traralgon, which is 64 kilometres away and takes about a 50-minute drive to get to.While Phelan's business no longer handles cash, he said some of his older clients still pay by cheque.
'When you're dealing with the farming community, there's a lot of people that don't have bloody computers, and if they did have they wouldn't know the first thing about how to get in,' he said.
'A lot of these pensioners hear so many things about people being scammed.
"They've got a little bit of hard-earned money, they don't want to open themselves up to get scammed and have the money taken off them.'
Phelan said other businesses in town were concerned about having to cart their money through the hills to the branch.
The Yarram Country Club has been looking into the cost of hiring an armed cash transfer business to transfer the money securely, but Phelan said it would cost them around $20,000 a year.
'The government needs to step in and say, no more bank closures. If you're the last one in town, you've got to stay there and provide a service,' Phelan said.
Bendigo Bank sorry for 'inconvenience'
A Bendigo Bank spokesperson told Yahoo Finance 'evolving customer preferences, a reduction in business activity and an increase in cost' were behind the bank's 'difficult decision' to permanently close its Yarram branch and ATM.
The bank noted more people were choosing to bank online and fewer customers were visiting branches to do their banking.
It also noted customers who did visit a branch were doing so less often, and customers had also chosen other locations to conduct their banking.
According to branch data, 63 per cent of its Yarram customers regularly use internet banking and/or phone banking, while 28 per cent choose to bank in-branch only.
'The Bank apologises to its customers for the inconvenience. Bendigo Bank is proud of its regional heritage and operates Australia's second largest regional branch network,' the spokesperson said.
'To preserve our ability to continue delivering for our customers and communities, we must ensure our branches are adequately supported and resourced.'
The bank, which says it operates Australia's second-largest regional branch network, has advised customers that they can bank using Australia Post's Bank@Post service, which offers basic cash deposits and withdrawals.
The Yarram branch is one of 10 branches across Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania that Bendigo Bank will close from this month, along with its 28 agency locations.
Two other Victorian communities, Bannockburn and Korumburra, along with Malanda in Queensland and Queenstown in Tasmania will lose their last local bank branch.
Queenstown residents will face a two-hour drive to their nearest bank in Burnie when the branch closes in September.
West Coast Council Mayor Shane Pitt told Yahoo Finance there had been "no consultation at all" with the community about the closure and called it a "kick in the guts" for tourism and residents.
"This is the last bank on the West Coast of Tasmania. So it's going to [have] a huge impact, especially given that we've got an ageing population and a lot of people still like face-to-face banking," he said.
Calls to protect regional banking
The federal government inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia released its final report in May last year and laid out eight recommendations.
That included setting up a regional community banking branch program to help underwrite the establishment of community bank branches, guaranteeing reasonable access to cash and financial services for all Aussies, and establishing a mandatory code of conduct that would force banks to have meaningful consultation with communities before a branch is closed.
Shadow Minister for Financial Services Pat Conaghan and his National party colleagues wrote to Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Financial Services Minister Daniel Mulino on Friday calling on the government to urgently table its response to the inquiry and to 'work with all sides of the floor to urgently protect our regional banking services'.
It has also called for the moratorium on regional bank closures to be extended to other banks. The federal government struck a deal with the Big Four banks in February to keep their regional banks open until at least mid-2027, but this doesn't cover mid-tier banks like Bendigo.
'It's not binding, came too late for many towns in our communities, and does not cover the mid-tier banks that regional Australians rely on,' Conaghan said.
'Every day the Labor Government delays, more regional communities lose services that small businesses, older Australians, and families rely on. We need an immediate and practical plan in place before any more doors are shut.
'Access to banking and financial services is a right, not a privilege.'
Aussie residents to keep fighting
Bendigo Bank has confirmed it will close its Yarram branch in September and has informed Mayor Scott Rosetti it would not take up a proposal for a locally operated community bank.
It claimed the model would face the same challenges as the current branch and could not be sustained.
The Wellington Shire Council said the decision was a 'bitter blow' for Yarram and came despite strong community backing for keeping local banking services.
Phelan said he had never seen the community 'so enraged' as he had over this branch closure.
'They say that they are the better big bank, we're the ones for the bush, we want to help the bush. They're not helping the bush, they're only helping their bloody own pockets,' he said.
But Phelan said the fight was not over and the community was now trying to see if they could encourage one of the major banks to return to the town.
'We won't give up. We'll keep fighting,' he said.