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Dubbing itself the ‘better big bank’ and claiming to be ‘bigger for you’ is just hypocrisy at its finest when the bank is doing everything it can to be anything but.  

Since Bendigo Bank launched its major brand campaign to position itself as a genuine alternative to the big four banks and to ‘focus on what really matters to customers’, all it’s done is prove to communities that it’s just as cutthroat and profit-driven as the rest.  

The bank has already been outed in media for claiming it “operates Australia’s second largest regional branch network” – a statement that simply isn’t true and becoming less so by the day.  

This month, Bendigo Bank announced the closure of 10 bank branches, callously putting an end to local banking in five regional communities where it was the last remaining bank branch – Bannockburn, Korumburra and Yarram in Victoria, Malanda in Queensland, and Queenstown in Tasmania. Tasmanian West Coast locals will now be forced to drive two hours just to access banking services.  

And if this wasn’t enough of a failure from a bank that claims to heartily support regional communities, it twisted the knife deeper by gutting its entire agency network just a few weeks later. A massive 28 regional communities will lose access to banking services from smaller locations such as news agencies, eliminating banking services entirely for 15 of those communities.  

And all this without any consultation or care for how these closures will impact communities or businesses.  

Bendigo has cited “decreasing customer use” as a factor in its decisions, driving people to online banking – as all the other banks have done. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course – the more branches you close, the more people will be forced online. 

The reality is, Bendigo Bank is simply putting profits before people.  

We know that decisions on branch closures are made based on artificially low transaction numbers (based only on deposits and withdrawals), and they don’t count interactions that aren’t transactions.    

Unfortunately, these interactions are the ones that cannot be done anywhere but at a bank branch. They range from identity checks to cries for help from our elderly and the most vulnerable in our communities who are impacted by violence or cruel scams. This includes loan applications, opening new accounts for children or community organisations and more. All these interactions have one thing in common: they must be performed by a suitably qualified bank worker.    

Bank closures are simply a grab by corporations for a larger slice of profits and a desire to exit the most expensive arm of banking – face-to-face banking services.  

It’s been almost 14 months since the Senate Inquiry into regional banking recommended that banks be considered an essential service to protect regional communities. Why hasn’t any action been taken to implement the numerous recommendations from its report? 

While our politicians continue to sit on their hands, we’ve seen a whopping 931 bank branches closed since 2020* – that’s over three branches closed every week.  

It’s now beyond critical that the federal government step in and hold banks like Bendigo to account – banks have proven themselves incapable of doing anything other than putting profits and shareholders first. Continuing to give them free reign to self-regulate is pure insanity.  

When will our federal government take this issue seriously and ensure banks put their multi-billion-dollar profits towards providing the vital banking services our regional and remote communities need?   

*Based on data collected by the Finance Sector Union to the best of its knowledge.