PRESS RELEASE: 64 more towns in NAB’s regional bank firing line
There are 64 more towns across Australia which should be concerned about losing their NAB bank branches soon.
That’s because, like the pre-tremors of an earthquake, those branches are experiencing the first sign of impending closure—reduced business hours.
This is the scam NAB and other banks are running to justify closing branches: they reduce business hours, then claim there is less business, and then close the branch.
The towns in the firing line
The branches are in:
Biggenden, Blackwater, Bourke, Bright, Chinchilla, Cloncurry, Cobar, Cohuna, Condobolin, Coonamble, Corrigin, Cunnamulla, Dongara, Dowerin, Dunsborough, Edenhope, Finley, Gilgandra, Gloucester, Inglewood Qld, Injune, Inverloch, Jamestown, Jeparit, Karratha, Katanning, Kellerberrin, Kerang, Kojonup, Kununurra, Kyogle, Lake Cargelligo, Manjimup, Miles, Millmerran, Mitchell, Mullumbimby, Mundubbera, Nagambie, Narrogin, Nhill, Northampton, Numurkah, Nyngan, Oberon, Orbost, Ouyen, Pittsworth, Port Hedland, Proserpine, Quilpie, Quirindi, Rainbow, Richmond, Scone, South West Rocks, St Arnaud, Tenterfield, Terang, Timboon, Walcha, Wallan, Warren, Winton.
Established pattern
In 2017, journalist Dale Webster identified this pattern of reduced business hours preceding branch closures in a Weekly Times article about the closure of NAB’s branch in Harrow in Victoria, which had been operating on limited hours.
Webster warned: “The closure leaves a question mark over 13 other Victorian NAB branches that operate under reduced hours … at Edenhope, Goroke, Jeparit, Kaniva, Balmoral, Rainbow, Boort, Barham, Swifts Creek, Orbost, Maffra, Heyfield and Yarram.”
Of those 13 branches, NAB has since closed nine, and recently notified Japarit it will close on 6 July (along with Inverloch). Only three others are still open—Edenhope, Rainbow, and Orbost.
NAB’s arrogance
NAB was the only Big Four bank to point-blank refuse the request of the Senate committee currently inquiring into bank closures in regional Australia to pause further branch closures pending the outcome of the inquiry.
Whereas CBA complied, Westpac paused half of its planned closures, and ANZ pledged not to plan more closures, NAB replied to Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee Chair Matt Canavan: “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.”
NAB shamelessly claimed this decision was “in the best interest of NAB colleagues working in branches and on behalf of our customers and shareholders”; i.e. that pushing ahead with branch closures is in the interests of the customers who are losing their face-to-face service and the staff who are losing their jobs!
Misleading the inquiry?
NAB is closing branches to force customers to bank online—even those vulnerable to sophisticated online scams.
It is sending so-called “fact sheets” to the branches it is closing that claim customer visits have reduced, and around 90 per cent of customers have registered to bank online.
However, NAB’s figures also show that only around 25 per cent of customers who are registered to bank online are “active” online users, and NAB uses the years 2019-21 to show a fall-off in customer deposits without acknowledging the impact of covid.
Even then, NAB is closing branches which show a significant increase in customer deposits, including Alexandra in Victoria.
Now-independent journalist Dale Webster exposed in a 17 March The Regional article, “Senate inquiries are serious business and no place for spin”, that NAB was misleading at the 2 March Senate hearing in Sale, Victoria, about its Maffra agency.
NAB cited figures showing a dramatic drop in deposits in 2022, without revealing that it had significantly reduced business hours, or that the agency was “temporarily” closed for the fourth quarter of 2022.
All 64 towns in NAB’s firing line should make submissions to the Senate inquiry.
The Australian Citizens Party is an independent, federally-registered political party, founded in 1988. It is committed to policies that promote the economic development of Australia for the benefit of all its people, not just the vested corporate interests which have too much influence over the major political parties. It takes its inspiration from the "old Labor" party stalwarts including King O'Malley, who fought to establish Australia's national bank, the Commonwealth Bank, and John Curtin and Ben Chifley, who used the Commonwealth Bank to lead the economic mobilisation that saved Australia in WWII. The ACP fought against the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank, which has concentrated financial power in Australia in the Big Four banking oligopoly that gouges short-term profits at the expence of Australians and the nation's economic development, and is campaigning to re-establish a national bank, modelled on the old Commonwealth Bank, as a government post office bank which would guarantee face-to-face banking services, and access to cash, for all communities, and break the Big Four banking oligopoly.
