Real reason why Commonwealth Bank is opening ‘cashless branches’

Commonwealth Bank’s cashless branches aren’t called branches and are apparently designed to help customers navigate technology.

Australia’s largest home lender markets these outlets as ‘specialist centres’, but in its annual report they are referred to as ‘service centres’, which is different from ‘branches’.

Tellers at these 13 ‘service centres’ are not allowed to carry out cash transactions, but a spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia they are designed to help with customer queries, provide advice on home loans and savings goals and conduct ‘digital and technology conversations’.

“Specialist centers are designed to support retail and business customers with more complex banking needs,” he said.

All of these cashless branches are located in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, mainly in the inner city, with another Bankwest branch in Perth (pictured are staff from the Penrith ‘specialist centre’ in western Sydney)

All of these cashless branches are located in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, mainly in the inner city, with another Bankwest branch in Perth.

Commonwealth Bank opened its first service center in Sydney’s South Everleigh in 2020, as the pandemic saw even more consumers switch from using cash to tap-and-go payments.

Since then, other cashless service centers have opened at Australia National University in Canberra, Barangaroo in Sydney, Chatswood Chase on Sydney’s north shore, the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus, Westfield Penrith in Sydney’s west, Commonwealth Bank Place in Sydney’s Darling Harbour. , Eagle Street in Brisbane, Collins Street in Melbourne, Burwood Village in Melbourne’s south-east and Melbourne Central.

The Commonwealth Bank’s 2022-2023 annual report lists 741 branches and ‘service centres’ – grouped together to disguise the scale of bank closures.

But chief executive Matt Comyn told a parliamentary inquiry into regional banking last September that there were 728 branches, leaving 13 ‘service centres’.

He told the committee that making cash available was expensive, arguing that the vast majority of customers who stopped using cash were cross-subsidizing those who did.

“Transporting and making available cash across our vast country entails significant costs in terms of logistics and security,” he said.

“We estimate that continuing to support the distribution and availability of cash will cost the CBA approximately $400 million annually, which equates to approximately $40 for each of our 10 million customers.

“However, many of our customers do not use cash, and these customers cross-subsidize those who do.

“As time passes, it becomes unsustainable to invest substantial resources and maintain expensive services that fewer and fewer customers use.”

The Commonwealth Bank has closed 354 traditional cash-transfer branches in five years, up from 1,082 in June 2018.

Commonwealth Bank CEO Matt Comyn (right) told a parliamentary inquiry into regional banking last September that there were 728 branches, leaving 13 ‘service centres’.

During that time, the share of personal transactions in Australia made in cash fell to 16 per cent in 2022, down from 32 per cent in 2019 before the pandemic, a Reserve Bank of Australia report showed.

None of its specialist centers have opened in regional areas and CBA has pledged no closures outside a capital city before 2026.

CBA is far from the only major bank experimenting with cashless branches, with National Australia Bank and ANZ running similar service centers that do not dispense notes.