Northern suburbs customers of the Commonwealth Bank have been left without a branch with news the Thirroul branch will be closed permanently on June 23.
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The branch had been closed throughout the COVID-19 shutdowns in what had been called a "temporary" move. But the Commonwealth has now revealed it will close the branch permanently.
Regional manager Norm Swift said more customers were banking online and had shown a willingness to visit other branches nearby during Thirroul's COVID closure.
"Following a recent review and in line with our lease expiry, we made the difficult decision to permanently close our Thirroul branch," he said.
"This branch has had a 58 per cent drop in transactions over the past five years."
He said there would be no job losses.
"We have redeployed more than 95 per cent of staff from branches that have closed," he said.
"Our people from Thirroul branch are supporting our customers over the phone and online as they have been since May last year, and they will be offered permanent roles in those teams or other comparable roles where it suits them. There are no job losses as a result of this decision.
"We recognise some customers prefer to do their banking face-to-face and this is one of the reasons why CBA is proud to maintain the largest branch network in the country. For Thirroul customers, we have other branches in the region at Corrimal, Wollongong and Figtree.
"We've found that 26 per cent of customers from Thirroul were already visiting these other branches before the branch temporarily closed in May 2020."
It leaves only Illawarra Credit Union at Helensburgh, IMB in Thirroul and Woonona, and Horizon in Thirroul as the only branches left north of Corrimal. All the big banks have gone.
This follows Greater Bank's decision to close its Wollongong branch earlier this month, a decision also said to be "driven primarily by customer behaviour".
"In making the decision to close the Crown Street Mall branch, we have ensured that there is very close proximity to a nearby branch that the majority of our affected customers have already and can continue to use," Greater group executive for sales, marketing and distribution Craig Newham said.
"The closure has not impacted our Wollongong branch employees, all of whom have been redeployed within our branch network in the region."
Greater has branches at Corrimal, Dapto, Figtree and Shellharbour.
Correction: An earlier version of this story omitted to mention the IMB branch in Thirroul.
Ben Langford
Senior journalist writing on the environment. Opinion columnist, independent. We rely on your news tips so please, don't be shy to let us know what's going on.
Senior journalist writing on the environment. Opinion columnist, independent. We rely on your news tips so please, don't be shy to let us know what's going on.
