Junee community continue fight to save Commonwealth Bank branch, call on government to help

The Junee Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) was marked to shut it doors earlier this month on December 9, with a drop in transactions cited as part of the reason it will close.

Customers were directed after it closes, in-person services would be provided through the Bank@Post program or at other branches.

The Junee Shire Council Mayor Neil Smith said the bank closure was pushed back to March 3, after they found CBA did not give the appropriate amount of notice.

"What we're really hoping to do is get the parliament to have another look at this," he said.

"They've already produced a report into the banking industry, but the people on the committee that looked at it were mostly bank representatives."

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Cr Smith said council was also working on collecting data about how many people actually use the bank in Junee.

"Our staff have been staked out in front of the bank for a couple of weeks, counting the number of people that actually do us the ATM and do actually go into the bank for service."

"The bank is telling us that business is dropping off, and they can't warrant keeping it open, but our figures are different."

He said moving forward after the closure, they were also concerned that any Junee residents who open an account with the bank would be given a Wagga BSB number, decreasing the number of account holders recorded in the town.

Cr Smith, general manager James Davis, and chief financial officer last week met with Riverina MP Michael McCormack to discuss the latest updates.

Mr McCormack said he supported the community's efforts to look for alternative solutions to the banks closure.

"It is not good enough that businesses and community groups will now have to travel to Wagga Wagga to do their banking," he said.

"Regional people deserve access to the same banking services as those in the city."

A petition launched by Junee Shire Council is still available to sign at local businesses.

A national petition calling for a moratorium on regional bank closures received almost 5000 signatures, and has recently been presented to parliament.

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