{"id":212238,"date":"2020-08-20T06:36:33","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T06:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212238"},"modified":"2020-08-22T05:52:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-22T05:52:16","slug":"australias-big-four-banks-remove-thousands-of-atms-and-shut-down-hundreds-of-branches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=212238","title":{"rendered":"Australia&#8217;s big four banks remove thousands of ATMs and shut down hundreds of branches"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>At least 2150 ATM terminals removed across Australia in the recent June quarter<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Australia&#8217;s big four banks shut up a combined 175 branches in the last 12 months<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Sparked by COVID-19 as Australia move closer to becoming a cashless society\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong>Opinion divided over branch and ATM closures which will inconvenience elderly<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_212239\" style=\"width: 550px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Commonwealth-Bank-customers-withdraw-cash-in-Brisbane.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-212239\" class=\"wp-image-212239\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Commonwealth-Bank-customers-withdraw-cash-in-Brisbane.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"370\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Commonwealth-Bank-customers-withdraw-cash-in-Brisbane.jpg 634w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Commonwealth-Bank-customers-withdraw-cash-in-Brisbane-300x205.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-212239\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Commonwealth Bank customers withdraw cash in Brisbane, Australia. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Kylie Stevens \u2013 Daily Mail Aug 17, 2020<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/coronavirus\/index.html\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">coronavirus<\/span><\/strong><\/a> crisis has sparked the closure of a record number of ATMs and hundreds of bank branches as Australia moves closer towards a cashless society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The number of ATMs across the nation are at their lowest level in 12 years at 25,720, after at least 2150 terminals removed in the recent June quarter, according to\u00a0the Australian Payments Network.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Australia&#8217;s big four banks \u2013 ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac \u2013 also shut up a combined 175 branches in the last 12 months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The widespread closures have divided public opinion and left 2.5 million elderly Australians who don&#8217;t do online banking inconvenienced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Of the 175 branch closures, ANZ had the highest number with 68, followed by the Commonwealth with 44, Westpac had 36 while NAB shut 27.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Westpac removed the most ATMs at 84, followed by ANZ at 73 and NAB at 21 while Commonwealth Bank didn&#8217;t disclose its number of closed terminals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Reserve Bank of Australia\u2019s head of payments policy Tony Richards said most ATM closures were in\u00a0metropolitan areas in locations such as shopping centres.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;Overall the bank expects the long-term downward trend in the use of cash to continue,&#8217; he told <a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adelaidenow.com.au\/business\/companies\/south-australian-bank-branches-and-atms-disappear-as-australians-ditch-cash\/news-story\/4d1d34f7cb8756ce45eba2d76c053d5a\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">News Corp<\/span><\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Australian Banking Association&#8217;s chief executive officer Anna Bligh added: &#8216;Australia&#8217;s banks have invested heavily to keep up with the customers banking preferences with technology and data now playing a key role in how banks do their business&#8217;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Not everyone has welcomed the move by the banks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">National Seniors Australia chief advocate Ian Henschke said many of the elderly feel more comfortable using cash amid a fear of being scammed online.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;Many of them are older Australians and taking away services from them is going to be extremely difficult for them,&#8217; he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The ATM and branch closures have also divided public opinion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">&#8216;This is stupid If I wasn&#8217;t living with my son and family I would not be able to have the Internet. So how the hell do low income and pensioners get their money. Oh right we will be forced to walk into a bank and will be charged. Profit before people as usual,&#8217; one woman posted on Facebook.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-8633457\/Australias-big-four-banks-remove-thousands-ATMs-close-branches-coronavirus.html\">Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Expect to see this happen in other countries too as coronavirus is used as a pretext to push us all closer to a cashless society<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coronavirus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=212238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212241,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212238\/revisions\/212241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=212238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=212238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=212238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}