Westpac, St George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne restructure will see 48 bank branches closed

The Finance Sector Union says Westpac is moving to shutter branches in a major restructure | FULL LIST

Anthony Keane and Glen Norris

3 min read

1:16PMMarch 26, 2021.

Updated 8:33PMMarch 26, 2021

The Australian Business Network

Westpac has announced a list of branch closures. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Geraghty

Westpac is shutting or amalgamating 48 branches in the largest ever downsizing by a major Australian bank.

Finance Sector Union (FSU) national secretary Julia Angrisano attacked the closures, accusing the bank of deserting its customers and staff to shore up profit.

The union said the closures would affect 165 staff at Westpac, St George, BankSA and Bank of Melbourne branches across the country.

“The shutdown of so many branches will impact on a large number of staff, customers and businesses around Australia,” Ms Angrisano said. “Westpac is deserting its customers and its staff by closing branches to shore up its profits.”

She said the bank had notified the union and its branch staff of the closures.

Westpac has confirmed 39 metropolitan and one regional branch will close and it is working with staff to co-locate Westpac branches with its other brands in eight regional locations.

It said the branch closures followed a “seismic shift” toward digital and cashless banking, along with declining foot traffic at bank branches, particularly in urban areas.

The bank said it had expanded its 24/7 phone banking and virtual banking centres to meet changing customer preferences.

The union however disputed the shift to internet banking was the real reason for the closures noting “if these branches were making large profits for the bank they would not be closing.”

A Westpac spokesperson said that as part of the changes it had moved 300 new jobs to Victoria, 90 jobs of which have been recruited and will be based out of its Preston call centre which had undertaken a $1 million refurbishment to increase capacity.

Westpac Bank downsizing

“When we do close a branch, it is not a decision we take lightly,” a spokesperon said. “We take into consideration customer usage, location and proximity to other banking services.”

Westpac said it had identified branches in metropolitan areas with low utilisation, where there was another branch within five kilometres and where customers preferred the convenience and increased safety of contactless, cashless and digital channels.

Bank branches would continue to remain an important service option, especially in areas that had high customer usage. The spokesperson said Westpac continued to hold the second largest branch network in Australia out of all the major banks.

Westpac joins a growing number of major banks closing branches to cut costs and adapt to the increasing number of people using online banking services.

ANZ announced the closure of 27 branches in February across the country, including 10 each in Victoria and NSW and 3 three in Queensland.

ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott attributed the branch closures to a general decline in patronage that existed even before the COVID-19 pandemic, and said more closures would come.

“People just don’t come into the branches anymore. And I’m not talking about COVID - I mean, COVID exacerbated a trend,” Mr Elliott told Melbourne radio station 3AW earlier this month.

“I mean, branch traffic was falling 10, 15 per cent every single year, so there’s less and less people in the shop, yeah?

“And so at some point, you just can’t support a network of shops like that when there’s nobody really in them...and so yeah, we’ve closed a few we’ve got a few more to go.”

Last year, Suncorp announced it was closing 20 branches around Australia amid a major revamp of over-the-counter services sparked by falling customer traffic during COVID-19.

The closures included nine branches in both Queensland and NSW and came amid increasing migration of banking services online, a trend that has been accelerated by the COVID-19 shutdown. The closures, which represent about 16 per cent of its network, left Suncorp with 93 stores around the nation.

FSU’s list of impacted Westpac branches

BOM Carnegie VIC

WBC 242 Castlereagh St NSW

WBC Five Dock NSW

BSA North Adelaide SA

BOM Berwick VIC

BOM Bundoora VIC

BOM Burwood East VIC

BOM Forest Hill VIC

BOM Rowville VIC

WBC La Trobe University VIC

WBC Monash University VIC