1 week Ago By Hayley Taylor
A new analysis into the state of cash use and availability in Australia has revealed grim news for cash campaigners. Almost 450 branches and ATMs shut down in the last financial year alone, after more than half of the nation’s ATMs were wiped out over five years, amid the banking sector’s move towards increasingly digital operations. The new report, published by financial research agency Canstar, found that while regional bank branch closures had slowed, 52 of 230 branches closed last year were regional.
The year before, 112 regional branches were shuttered. Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today “If you ask anyone who was relying on those 52 branches to do their day-to-day banking, they won’t exactly be chalking this up as a win,” Canstar data director Sally Tindall said. But while digital banking is on the rise, cited by banks as the reason a third of the nation’s branches have closed, ATM withdrawals actually increased by 2.
7 per cent between July and August, new Reserve Bank data shows. Australia had almost 14,000 bank-owned ATMs in 2017, but by mid-2023 that figure had been trimmed to about 5700. Since then, another 217 ATMs have been removed.
State-by-state, Western Australia lost the most bank branches, with 9 per cent — a total of 339 — closing last year, Canstar said. New South Wales said goodbye to 7 per cent — a total of 78 — of its bank branches. The ACT lost 8 per cent of its ATMs, leaving the capital city with just 81 cash points in total.
Victoria lost 2 per cent of its ATMs, and now has just 1500 left in the state. The Northern Territory has been losing ATMs at a slower rate than the rest of the country over the last five years — it actually gained an extra six ATMs last year. The Commonwealth Bank has the most remaining ATMs with nearly 2000 still in operation, far surpassing ANZ, which has the second-largest number at 866.
“However, a branch or ATM closure in a shopping centre where there are alternatives nearby is very different to a branch closure in outback Australia that forces people into the car, in some cases for hours, to get to and from their new nearest branch,” Tindall said. “Cash might not rule the roost any more, but there’s still plenty of Australians that rely on it.” Westpac leads closure tally as digital services fail In terms of bank-specific closures, Westpac closed the most branches, out of the big four banks, in the last year — a total of 66 closures, representing an 11 per cent decrease in the bank’s branch numbers.
“This is a continuation of Westpac’s strategy to merge the group’s branches together, allowing Westpac, St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA customers to access the same facilities,” Canstar said. The report comes just a day after millions of Westpac customers were impacted by outages that blocked bankers from accessing the Westpac mobile app and the bank’s online services for hours on Monday and Tuesday . One Westpac customer told 7NEWS they could not access their cash and could not even pay for petrol because their cards were not working.
Westpac also announced last week that customers will no longer be able to access cardless cash from its remaining ATMs, giving customers just days before the bank scrapped the service. In the last year, NAB also scrapped 11 per cent of its branches — removing 53 in total — while the Commonwealth Bank got rid of 32 branches and ANZ ditched 39. But Westpac also led the tally for ATM closures, with the highest number of removals among the major banks in the last year.
It shut down 88 in total, exactly twice as many as NAB, while the Commonwealth Bank scrapped 40 ATMs, and ANZ got rid of just four. Branch closures and pipeline promises The slowing of regional branch closures was at least partly due to the commitment from three of the big four banks – CBA, Westpac and ANZ – to temporarily suspend regional branch closures. “The big question is, what will happen beyond this commitment from CBA, Westpac and ANZ,” Tindall said.
But eight branches in remote and very remote locations around Australia still closed in the last year. In inner and outer regional locations, 44 branches were shuttered, and in major cities, 178 were scrapped. Commonwealth Bank confirmed on Wednesday that it will keep regional branches open until at least the end of 2026.
However BankWest is set to close all of its remaining branches this year, with 15 of its regional branches set to be converted into Commonwealth Bank branches. ANZ has committed to keeping ANZ and Suncorp regional branches open until mid-2027 and maintain Suncorp’s current branch footprint in Queensland for three years. Westpac said in May that it would keep regional branches open until at least 2027.
Bank @ Post — which allows Commonwealth Bank, NAB and Westpac customers to make deposits, withdrawals and balance enquiries at participating Australia Post outlets — has a total of 3428 presence points, APRA said. The service gained a presence point in a single remote location in the last year, but 51 presence points were still scrapped from major city locations, and 13 were shuttered in inner and outer regional locations..
