Big Aussie banks shut Victorian branches and ATMs

Australia’s big four banks have raked in billions of dollars in profit, but closed hundreds of branches and ATMs. See where you can’t get cash anymore.

More than 120 bank branches have been shut down across Victoria by Australia’s big banks in just three years — including 21 branches in Melbourne city alone — while the number of automated teller machines has been decimated.

New figures reveal more than one in four bank ATMs has been removed from the state since 2019 — a total of 834 cash machines — at the same time as banks closed their doors.

The move has left a record number of Victorian towns without a local bank or ATM, and has seen some of the state’s regions particularly hard hit by the cost-cutting wave.

The closures came despite rising, multibillion-dollar profits for Australia’s financial institutions, and the threat of a federal taskforce investigating regional banking services.

Figures obtained by News Corp showed the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ and NAB closed 459 bank branches across Australia between 2019 and 2021, and shuttered 3,803 ATMs.

Victorian regions were among the worst hit by bank closures in the country, with Mornington Peninsula losing 31 per cent of its branches, or 11 locations, out of the state’s 126 shopfront closures.

Another 21 bank branches were closed in Melbourne’s inner city, while 15 branches were shut in the northeast and Warrnambool lost six branches.

New figures reveal more than one in four bank ATMs has been removed from Victoria since 2019. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Melburnians Anna-Maria Balauca and Mick Curwskyj, both 21, have struggled to find cash machines in the CBD to pay for groceries and bills.

“I do take cash out regularly, it’s getting increasingly difficult to find ATMs and places to get cash out,” Ms Balauca said.

“My mum always had cash, I prefer to use it, I’ve gotten used to it.”

The cost-cutting has come despite soaring profits for all four of Australia’s big banks, as the Commonwealth Bank reported a half-year cash net profit of $4.75bn — up 23 per cent — and ANZ, Westpac and NAB recorded increased profits of $1.8bn for the first quarter of the year.

Anna-Maria Balauca, 21 and Mick Curkowskyj, 21, at an ATM in Melbourne’s CBD. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Australian Banking Association chief executive Anna Bligh said the institutions were shutting branches and ATMs as part of a “massive transformation” in the way many Australians wanted to handle their finances and pay for goods.

She said banks had seen a 10 per cent decrease in consumers using cash, and Australians were using ATMs less as a result.

“We’ve got data that tells us 80 per cent of Australians prefer to do most of their bank services online or by the phone,” Ms Bligh said.

“But that still leaves a lot of people who are uncomfortable in those channels, and that’s why banks are still committed to keeping a branch network even though it may reduce in size.”

But Finance Sector Union national secretary Julia Angrisano said closing so many bank branches and ATMs was hurting communities, particularly in regional areas, as well as excluding bank customers who weren’t equipped to use online services.

“Closures have a devastating impact on local communities,” she said. “Jobs are lost, business is impacted and another local service disappears.

“Customers with disabilities, low levels of digital literacy and those with limited access to transport and, of course, older Australians (are affected).”

Julia Angrisano, national secretary of the Finance Sector Union. Picture: Hollie Adams

Ms Angrisano said regulations should be introduced to ensure banking was recognised as an essential service.

“There should be minimum levels of service that are guaranteed,” she said.

“There needs to be a better assessment of community needs before a branch is closed. We would like to see community impact assessments become mandatory before a branch is shut.”

Swinburne University Adjunct Professor Steve Worthington warned banks were likely to keep closing branches and ATMs to maximise profits unless laws changed.

In a UK trial to address the same issue, he said banks were now being asked to prove customers would not be unfairly inconvenienced by the closure of a local branch before it could go ahead.

“If a bank intends to close a bank branch or take an ATM out of circulation, they have to prove that their customer base will not be disadvantaged,” he said.

“The expectation is that they’d have to put in alternative access arrangements, like mobile banking or cash deliveries.”

The federal government launched the Regional Banking Taskforce in late 2021 to address bank branch closures. It was due to report its findings in February but a Treasury spokesman said the report had yet to be finalised.