An East Coast community is reeling from a recent decision by a major bank to shut the doors of its St Mary's branch in August after a lack of community consultation, with the Break O'Day council now urging the public to change banks in response.
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The Commonwealth Bank decided to close the St Mary's branch due to a 36 per cent drop in physical transactions since 2016, with CBA regional manager also citing lease expiry and a branch review.
It comes as big banks across Australia continue to close physical branches in regional areas, with Tasmania losing 18 branches since 2018.
Break O'Day Council deputy mayor John McGiveron put forward an emergency motion to Council on Monday.
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He said council considers this a serious issue, with the nearest physical-branch for the community being St Helens or Campbell Town, with no commercial banking services available for the Fingal Valley region.
Mayor Mick Tucker urged the community to vote with their feet and move their accounts and loans to another bank who is more community minded.
He said a number of community members had expressed concern since finding out about the closure via the media.
"This is a case of big banks putting their profits and shareholders in front of their communities and customers in remote areas yet again.
"It simply isn't good enough that we all hear about this through the media and that there has been no discussion with the community or Council around what we could do together to ensure that our community has adequate banking facilities."
The ANZ bank shut its St Helens branch in 2018, with eight other regional branches across the North and North West having been shut by ANZ or Commonwealth Bank since then.
The Council plans to start discussions with Bendigo Bank to see if it may open a physical branch in St Marys.
