Cabonne Council mayor Kevin Beatty has labelled the closure of regional banks as "horrible" and said they were leading to the "disabling" of communities.
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Federal parliament is holding an inquiry into regional and rural bank branch closures with a report due to be released on December 1, 2023.
Submissions closed on March 31 with the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee to spend the next the next eight months focusing on five areas:
- The branch closure process, including the reasons given for closures;
- The economic and welfare impacts of bank closures on customers and regional communities;
- The effect of bank closures or the removal of face-to-face cash services on access to cash;
- The effectiveness of government banking statistics capturing and reporting regional service levels, including the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's authorised deposit-taking institutions points of presence data;
- Consideration of solutions; and any other related matters.
Commonwealth Bank closed their Molong and Blayney branches in June 2021, prompting community outrage.
Councillor Beatty said the move away from face to face contact was "horrible" in the face of huge bank profits.
"It is particularly horrible for our community to see the extraordinary profits begin made by the banking industry concurrent with a lower level of service," he said.
"Importantly, the people of regional Australia are impacted the most. Then, the more vulnerable and isolated cohorts of these communities are impacted even more."
Cr Beatty said residents were being left behind in the move to online banking due to lower rates of internet access.
"The assumption that online services are good enough to replace in person banking is flawed. Rather, it is disabling regional communities," he said.
"The theory behind bank branch closures is that so much can be done online. However, this is just plain wrong thinking.
"We know there is poor internet usage in the central NSW region where 72.45 per cent of households are connected to the internet well below the 82.5 per cent across NSW.
"When people leave the town to do their banking they also buy other goods and services which reduces the money circulating in the smaller communities economy putting at risk other local businesses.
"Other industry productivity is impacted as businesses and workers have to take the time to travel further to bank.
"The most vulnerable, least educated and oldest are most impacted where each of these cohorts has greater representation in our local government area than others in NSW."
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