Last week, three NAB branches closed in the Western Plains, two more dominoes in the falling regional banking landscape. For Lake Cargelligo, it was the death of the last bank in their community. The numbers may not tell the whole story, however.

According to ‘fact sheets’ that are distributed by NAB to justify branch closures, approximately 44 per cent of customers in Lake Cargelligo visited the branch, 50 per cent in Warren, and 47 per cent in Gilgandra. 

A recent Parliamentary hearing into the ‘Big Four’ banks, however, heard that NAB doesn’t count all foot traffic within the branch as a customer visit. 

When asked in the hearing about people coming into the branch to help navigate the digital system - which NAB employees are encouraged to offer to all customers as a banking alternative to face-to-face - it was revealed that those interactions don’t count as foot traffic.

“Those interactions that don't result in a transaction are actually very challenging to measure and we don't measure them,” a NAB Executive told the committee. 

In another hearing for the inquiry into Bank Closures in Regional Australia, NAB executives said that foot traffic - using their method of counting - is more of a factor in branch closures than the profitability of the branch. 

“We don't look at it as location by location profitability. Instead, what we consider is how we're serving our customers in those locations,” the committee heard from a NAB executive. 

“The reality is you're looking at it through the eyes of a spreadsheet or your management charts. These people do live by location,” Senator Gerard Rennick said in reply earlier this year. 

“So it might be semantics for the management accountant back at head office, but the reality is for people on welfare and retirees and everything like that, they literally have to geographically travel from one town to the other,” he added. 

The NAB branch in Gilgandra.

The Regional Banking Taskforce will draw to a close with fewer banks to deliver their recommendations to than when they started, an apt time for the Australian Citizens Party to double down on their campaign for a publicly owned post office bank. 

The fall of the bank branch has left major banks urging customers to turn to online banking, and for businesses and individuals to seek out in-person banking through their collaboration with Bank@Post services.

“The banks are forcing Australia to go cashless and digital so they can get all the profit for no service,” Australian Citizens Party research director Robert Barwick said. 

The proposed public post office bank would operate within the community as a public bank, rather than the current model of being a service for other private banks, much like the Commonwealth Bank before it was privatised in 1996.

According to the Australian Citizens Party, a public post office bank would introduce competition for private banks - particularly the Big Four - and force them to reintroduce lost services for customers to maintain their business. 

“The only reason the government wouldn’t go with the post office people’s bank solution is if they are scared of the banks, so that’s the question—are they?,” said Mr Barwick. 

Within the banking enquiry hearing, Senator Malcolm Roberts referenced the ‘paradise’ that Big Four banks are playing in. 

“We also know that the Australian Banking Association code of practice basically has no provisions that are enforceable. The Regional Banking Taskforce has been ignored. The Australian Banking Association code, coming back to that, is too loosely worded to be enforceable. APRA and ASIC have shown they have no teeth,” Senator Roberts said. 

The Commonwealth Postal Savings Bank Bill was introduced into Parliament by the Australian Citizens Party.