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Stacy Squires / Stuff
The Bank of New Zealand will close its Geraldine branch, along with 37 others across the country next year. (File photo)
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
The owners of a retail business in Geraldine say they and others in small rural areas could have a hard time providing customers with change in the future.
The Bank of New Zealand will close the Geraldine branch, along with 37 others across the country by the middle of next year.
John Shirtcliff and his wife manage Geraldine’s kitchen cupboard, and now they face an hour and a half round trip to Timaru to collect coins for customers in need of change.
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He said there was little consideration for the needs of retail customers or his mainly older customers who still preferred to use cash for their transactions.
“It stunned me. Imagine what would happen if my wife, who runs a store, refused to serve customers with something they wanted or needed from her.”
Shirtcliff said they could switch to one of the few remaining banks in the township, but he wasn’t sure how long they would stay.
“There is a Westpac and an ANZ, but who knows how long they will stay. It is a real problem for small towns.”
Shirtcliff said he spent years working as an economic development consultant and discovered that there were distinct characteristics that small towns needed to survive and thrive.
“One of them is the presence of a bank.”
It was a point recently raised by the mayor of the Buller district, who was also losing BNZ branches. Reefton’s departure would leave the city without a bank.
Jamie Cleine said it could be bad for a city’s reputation not to have conventional banking.
“If people are looking to invest or start a new business in the city, it says something if a city has basic services, like banks.”
BNZ’s director of customer care, Paul Carter, said that about three-quarters of his customers were increasingly choosing to bank online or by phone.
It said eight of its metropolitan branches would close this month and 30 branches across the country would close in 2021. The bank’s remaining network of branches and partner centers in New Zealand would be supported by nearly 400 smart ATMs, three branches of Mobile BNZ, a contact center and digital and online services.
Shirtcliff said banks touted smart ATMs as the way of the future, and while they accepted coin deposits, they only gave out bills.
“At the moment all we can get is people parroting ‘smart ATM, smart ATM’, but in my opinion, they’re not that damn smart.”
He said it would have been prudent for BNZ to wait for the outcome of a regional banking pilot plan before taking such drastic action.
The pilot was led by the New Zealand Bankers Association and included six major banks that would test demand for basic banking services in regional communities.
It has just started in Twizel, Martinborough and Stoke, a suburb of Nelson. It would start in Ōpunake for the next two weeks.
Carter said the BNZ did not make the decision lightly, as closing branches also meant job losses.
He said the bank’s mobile service worked well in the Manawatū-Whanganui and Northland regions by providing banking services and financial support to remote communities.
“We will add additional vehicles to our fleet to allow more communities to receive financial support,” he said.
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and republished with permission.
