Today Show host Karl Stefanovic slams major banks for closing across regional Australia

>

Karl Stefanovic has been unleashed on Australia’s major banks as small towns suffer amid the closure of 92 branches across the country.

About 100 branches have closed since September last year, and most of the banks that have closed have been in regional Australian cities, due to claims there was not enough foot traffic to keep them open.

One city already dealing with the loss of its local Westpac branch is Cloncurry, in north-west Queensland, which has a population of nearly 4,000.

“These people deserve better,” the Today Show host said on Tuesday morning, adding that the big four banks, ANZ, NAB, Westpac and Commonwealth made multi-billion dollar profits last year.

Westpac’s net profit was $5.69bn, Commonwealth’s was $9.6bn, NAB had a profit of $6.8bn, while ANZ’s net profit was $7.1bn.

Karl Stefanovic has been unleashed on Australia’s major banks as small towns suffer amid the closure of 92 branches across the country.

“They can’t find the money to keep a regional facility open,” Stefanovic said bitterly.

Cloncurry Shire Mayor Greg Campbell said the indigenous and elderly communities in his town who are struggling to use internet banking will be hit hard once the bank closes.

“Our city is thriving, and yet instead of Westpac supporting us, they turn their backs and walk away,” he told the breakfast show.

“It’s really disappointing and frustrating and it just doesn’t make sense.”

Campbell said that his town was “booming” and that it was successful in agriculture and mineral production.

“It’s also the message that it sends, when the community is thriving so much, when one of our banking institutions goes, that tells other investors, ‘Are we seeing the real thing?'” he continued.

Cloncurry Shire Mayor Greg Campbell said the indigenous and elderly communities in his town who are struggling to use internet banking will be hit hard once the bank closes.

Cloncurry Shire Mayor Greg Campbell said the indigenous and elderly communities in his town who are struggling to use internet banking will be hit hard once the bank closes.

“And the facts are this place is booming, people should invest, and it’s a crazy, dumb decision by the bank.”

The mayor added that they were informed of the bank’s closure via email, while many customers found out about it through word of mouth.

Stefanovic then joined the pack, saying that “getting away from the cities of the countryside is as low as it gets.”

The rural bank closures have prompted a Senate inquiry into the matter, as thousands of frustrated Australians demand their voices be heard.

The Senate agreed this week that the Committee on Transportation and Rural and Regional Affairs should conduct an investigation into the process of closing branches, examining the social and economic impacts on rural communities and possible solutions.

One task force, which ran for a year, received 416 submissions from rural residents distraught over declining essential services, limited access to cash and the slow economic death of their towns.

The Big Four Australian banks have made massive profits in the last year, but they are closing branches across the Australian region.

The Big Four Australian banks have made massive profits in the last year, but they are closing branches across the Australian region.

It published its final report in September and found that vulnerable people, including the elderly, disabled and indigenous communities, faced greater challenges when banks closed their doors.

Farmers and small businesses also struggle, often relying on face-to-face contact with bank managers who understand their businesses.

A month after the final report, the Westpac group announced it was closing at least nine country branches, including in the main opal mining region of Coober Pedy in South Australia.

Coober Pedy locals have to take their banking needs to Port Augusta or the interstate to Alice Springs, both over 500 km away.

Junee, a farming and resort town on the NSW Riverina, will lose its last bank, a Commonwealth branch, on March 3.

More than 1,600 bank branches have closed nationwide in the last six years.