YARRAM, Victoria, Australia– So-called “banking deserts” aren’t just limited to the United States. Residents of the town of Yarram in Victoria in southeastern Australia say they are being left with no access to in-person financial services with the announcement by Bendigo Bank that it plans to close its doors.
According to Yahoo Finance, 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 fighting back against the 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.
At one point, Bendigo Bank had been joined by branches from each of Australia’s big four banks, but they have all also closed up shop. Phelan said he had told everyone in town that if they all moved their business to Bendigo Bank, the institution “can’t possibly afford to leave. However, I was wrong.”
Closest Branch Nearly an Hour Away
When the Bendigo Bank branch closes, the next closest branch of the bank will be in Traralgon, which is 64 kilometers away and takes about a 50-minute drive to reach.
While Phelan’s business no longer handles cash, he said some of his older clients still pay by check.
“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 told Yahoo Finance. “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.
Call for Government to Step In
One local business that said it looked into hiring an armed cash transfer business said it was told it would cost approximately $20,000 annually.
“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 told Yahoo Finance.
In a statement to Yahoo Finance, a Bendigo Bank spokesperson said “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.
Use of E-Services Cited
The bank further said the closure is due to increased usage of online banking services.
According to branch data, 63% of its Yarram customers regularly use internet banking and/or phone banking, while 28% choose to bank in-branch only, Yahoo Finance reported.
