Commonwealth Bank to close Rundle Mall, Coolangatta and Coogee branches

A major SA bank branch will shut its doors in the latest spate of closures, with the institution blaming a steep decline in demand.

One of the nation’s largest banking institutions will shut down an Adelaide CBD branch as part of its latest closures, with three outlets nationwide set to close their doors.

Commonwealth Bank’s Rundle Mall store will shut up shop on March 1, along with branches at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast and Coogee in Sydney.

More than 350 CBA branches have now closed over the past five years, with the bank blaming a drop in demand for in-person services at the stores.

“We regularly review our services across Australia to help inform decisions on where to open, renovate or upgrade branches, or in some instances where to close branches,” the bank’s regional general manager Karen Reid said.
“After a recent review, we made the difficult decision to permanently close our Rundle Mall Adelaide, Coolangatta and Coogee branches.”

The bank, which turned record net cash profits of $10bn in 2022-23, said customer usage had dropped by 47 per cent in five years at the Rundle Mall store.

Ms Reid said the company was working closely with impacted employees, with all of them to be redeployed to comparable roles within the organisation.

CBA recently completed a major refurbishment of its King William St branch, which is 700m from the Rundle Mall store.

Commonwealth Bank has announced it will be closing its Rundle Mall branch. Picture: Emma Brasier.

The announcement is the latest in a spate of bank branch closures in SA, with Tailem Bend’s BankSA closing in February last year, and Mannum’s BankSA shutting up shop in December 2022.

In the wake of the closures, Member for Barker Tony Pasin campaigned for the reopening of banks in communities such as Naracoorte, Bordertown, Kapunda, Millicent, Penola, Renmark and Tailem Bend.

In July last year, ANZ and NAB revealed they were no longer allowing cash withdrawals over the counter at some branches – sparking outrage from cash-reliant community members.

A 2023 report by the Australian Banking Association and Accenture found 98.9 per cent of all transactions were now taking place digitally, with huge growth in mobile wallets on peoples’ smartphones.

It found the value of mobile wallet transactions jumped from $746 million in 2018 to $93 billion in 2022, a 12,400 per cent increase.

More than 15.3 million cards were registered to mobile wallets in 2022, up from two million in 2018.