ANZ has confirmed today that it will be closing its Nambucca Heads branch.
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Guardian News has received word from ANZ General Manager NSW and ACT, Amanda Heath-Ogden, that the branch will close on Wednesday, October 10.
“Increasingly we are seeing customers prefer to use online options and ATMs for their banking, which is part of a broader trend towards self-service for day-to-day banking. As a result, fewer customers are using our Nambucca Heads branch,” she said.
“Of our customers who have Nambucca Heads as their home branch, only 17 per cent of them currently use the branch with 59 per cent of them preferring internet or mobile banking.
“This has been a difficult decision and we apologise to our customers for the inconvenience we know this will cause some of them.”
ANZ recorded a statutory profit after tax for the half year ending March 31, 2018, of $3.32 billion, up 14 per cent.
The bank says it has written to its Nambucca Heads customers to notify them of the impending closure, and encourage them to consider using Bank@Post, online and mobile banking instead.
It has said an ANZ ATM will still be located in the town centre.
But what of the local staff?
We are consulting the staff members who currently work at the branch and are supporting them through this transition while making every effort to find them redeployment opportunities with ANZ.
- Ms Heath-Ogden
The closest branch will now be located 50km in either direction; Kempsey or Coffs Harbour.
A big bank trend?
At the time of that announcement local Federal member Luke Hartsuyker made a plea for NAB to reconsider its decision.
“Nambucca Heads and the surrounding communities are home to an aging population, so suggesting that customers can travel to Macksville or Coffs Harbour to withdraw or deposit money is not an ideal situation for this demographic, nor is it a sustainable alternative,” Mr Hartsuyker said in December.
The March deadline came and went with business as usual on Bowra St.
But in 2016, Macksville lost its fight to keep its Commonwealth Bank branch open.
“They see small communities as pesky – it makes me so sad that the world is so greedy,” one local said at the time.
“This is definitely not thinking of our community in Macksville – they are just looking after their shareholders, not the people who established them.”
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Mel Leigh Dee
Mel is a journalist at the Guardian News and is based in Macksville.
Mel is a journalist at the Guardian News and is based in Macksville.
