Banking

The chief executive of the Australian Banking Association Anna Bligh did not read a single submission to the 2021-2022 Regional Banking Taskforce she was a member of. This astonishing disclosure came out under questioning during a hearing of the Senate inquiry into regional bank closures ... CBA's Matt Comyn was the first to come before the senators and except for dropping the information that CBA will be making its Bankwest brand an entirely digital service he might have snuck through without a mention here.

Senators Matthew Canavan and Slade Brockman, have expressed their disgust in the cowardly decision of the National Australia Bank to close its Waroona branch just one week after a Senate inquiry on regional banking was in the region. NAB has announced that they will be closing their Waroona branch on 17 November this year, leaving the town without a bank.

People are not taking time off work every Friday during footy season to drive hundreds of kilometres to the next closest bank to get money to pay the players and run the bar for the fun of it. Or drawing on their annual leave to get the cash float for the local show. You don’t clock up more than 500km in two days trying to find a bank that is open to make a security deposit to see the country and you don’t place advertisements in the local paper for coin to provide change at the post office to make new friends.

Australian agricultural commodity prices experienced a mixed month in July, with wheat and cotton prices edging up, while dairy and barley prices eased, and cattle prices tracked sideways. The movements are reflected in the NAB Rural Commodities Index* which declined 2.1 per cent in July.

Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has entered a strategic alliance with plant nutrition company RLF AgTech, financing an innovative pilot program that aims to generate soil carbon credits ... RLF AgTech, a specialist in plant nutrition, has launched a soil carbon pilot program with Australian farmers who will utilise its Accumulating Carbon in Soil System (ACSS) technology.

With the Bendigo Bank’s departures, Barham will be left with the post office as an alternative and Cohuna having a NAB on limited hours and a post office. One shop owner expressed shock that services the agency performed for free (with no reimbursement by the bank) would now cost $8 at Australia Post. 

Livestock prices continue to place downward pressure on the NAB Rural Commodities Index, which has fallen for the eighth consecutive month to now be 28.1 per cent below June 2022 levels ... NAB Senior Agribusiness Economist, Phin Ziebell, said cattle prices have been the single greatest driver of the lower Rural Commodities Index, constituting a quarter of the total Index and losing around half its value from the 2022 peak.

Moody's Investors Service has upgraded Western Australia's credit rating to AAA, with a 'stable' outlook ... The upgrade means Western Australia is now the only State or Territory with a AAA credit rating from both major international ratings agencies, and one of a very small number of jurisdictions globally with such a rating.

The Commonwealth Bank is at it again. While to be congratulated on its decision to put a three-year moratorium on regional branch closures in place, it has dragged its co-publisher of the quarterly Regional Movers Index report into an embarrassing situation again by refusing to count their top destinations for regional migration as … regional.

The National Australia Bank (NAB) has been pulling a swifty on customers that have lost branches since September last year, using incomplete visitation data to justify the decisions ... The deception was revealed when the use of the phrase “over the counter interactions” on NAB’s West Lakes “branch closure fact sheet” was questioned, with information sought on what activities were being counted as foot traffic.

Westpac Bank has moved to allay Tennant Creek residents’ concerns it would abolish its automatic teller machine (ATM) services in town, after news spread the former bank building will be taken over by a new tenant. A Westpac spokesperson said the corporation will continue to provide customers with access to cash in Tennant creek via a new agreement with Precinct ATM.

The ANZ Clarkson branch is set to close this week while the ANZ Joondalup branch will move to a new location. In letters to customers the ANZ said its Clarkson branch at Unit 2, 23 Ocean Keys Blvd would close at 4pm on Wednesday, June 7.

Westpac should have been fronting up at the second hearing of the Senate inquiry into regional bank closures in Cloncurry this morning but after the beating it took during the first hearing at Sale in March, it appears it was not prepared to face an angry mob in a town where it was planning to close its local branch ... It has presented an ideal opportunity to have a close look at the grilling its executives received at Sale and remind readers that this is the bank with the worst track record leaving communities without banking services.

Community Bank Maldon & District is partnering with The Good Op Shop in Castlemaine and Haven; Home Safe (the regional housing support service in Bendigo) to run The Good Coat Drive throughout May and June. We are inviting the public to donate their old but good-condition coats to The Good Coat Drive so that those sleeping rough or struggling to keep warm this winter will have a little bit of extra help.

Senator Matthew Canavan and Member for Flynn Colin Boyce MP, have expressed their disappointment in NAB’s decisions to close the Biggenden branch ... "There are 47 community groups and 48 small businesses that are set to be directly impacted by the Biggenden branch closure. I urge NAB to support the community and keep this branch OPEN": Colin Boyce MP, Member for Flynn.