ANZ has promised to redeploy around fifty staff affected by its latest round of branch closures across the country.
The bank confirmed on Monday that it plans to withdraw another 15 branches this year in regional parts of NSW, Victoria and Western Australia as it accelerates the cull of over-the-counter customer services.
In the last 15 months the bank has shuttered 143 outlets.
ANZ’s head of retail Katherine Bray said staff were notified of the branch closures late last week.
“We announced the closures to employees last week and we will seek to retain as many of them as we can, particularly with increased demands on other areas of the bank that could benefit from their skills and experience,” she said.
“Of our employees that were working in a branch that closed last year, we were able to find new roles or redeployment opportunities for nearly all of them that wanted to stay with ANZ, including at remote locations.
“These were some of our most experienced staff and we redeployed them to where our customers need them most.”
Finance Sector Union national secretary Julia Angrisano said the decision was further evidence of ANZ turning its back on regional communities.
Most of the latest branch closures are in NSW towns including Kempsey, Casino, Cowra and Ulladulla.
“The ANZ takes the cake as the worst performer when it comes to deserting communities around Australia,” Angrisano said.
“This is a bank which lives up to the Banking Royal Commission’s description of banking as being driven by greed and short-term gain.”
The FSU is calling on the federal government to intervene in the rural banking crisis to curb the withdrawal of branch services.
“When there is a financial downturn the Federal Government backs the banks in order to protect the economy. So in our view, banks have an obligation to continue to provide a service to the community.”
“But the ANZ doesn’t understand that basic principle. The ANZ is obsessed with putting profits before people.”
“How long can Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg ignore the damage being done to regional Australia by the Big Four banks which simply don’t care about the people and businesses they are deserting?”
Bray said the customer were moving to digital banking channels, which had reduced demand for face-to-face banking.
“We continue to see a significant shift away from branches as customers increasingly choose to use online options and phones for their banking needs,” she said.
“Last year alone seventy per cent of our customers preferred digital banking options and many of our few remaining passbook-only customers have been choosing to use debit cards for the first time.
“Only twelve per cent of our customers used branches during the same time, which means we were only completing about one transaction per customer per month over the counter.”
Angrisano noted that workers who were not redeployed would be ineligible for ANZ’s enhanced redundancy provisions that were introduced after the Covid crisis hit Australia early last year.
The special redundancy measures, which guaranteed staff a minimum of nine months redundancy pay, was withdrawn on 1 April.