Kiwibank closures loom
Fourteen Kiwibank branches could close before Christmas, with more set to shut in the new year, a union leader says.
In the past two weeks Kiwibank has announced its intention to close three branches, in the Nelson suburb of Stoke, and in the Wellington suburbs of Petone and Johnsonville. The branches share premises with New Zealand Post.
E tu¯ national organiser Joe Gallagher said the closures followed NZ Post’s decision to ‘‘separate completely’’ from Kiwibank.
‘‘It’s quite an aggressive timeframe around separation, so they’re doing about half of the shops before Christmas, and the rest of them after Christmas. There’s about 205 people affected before Christmas; there’s about 14 shops before Christmas.’’
Gallagher said the union was working with many people who would be affected by the closures.
He said there would be about the same number of closures again after Christmas.
Gallagher said he believed the closure of Stoke’s Kiwibank branch was linked to the 2013 change in NZ Post’s deed of understanding.
‘‘Five years ago the National Government changed the deed of understanding, and that’s how they govern NZ Post in terms of how many corporate Postshops they’re required to have,’’ he said.
‘‘There’s about 205 people affected before Christmas.’’
E tu¯ national organiser Joe Gallagher
‘‘What everyone missed [at the time] is the Government allowed NZ Post to reduce the number of corporate shops they were required to have, as long as they provided service points.’’
However, a NZ Post spokesperson said it was not ‘‘closing or downgrading’’ services to any areas, and said any changes planned would have been allowed under the previous deed.
‘‘We want to reassure communities that there are no plans to withdraw postal services from any area,’’ the spokesperson said.
Kiwibank spokeswoman Kara Tait said changes for branches at this stage were intentions. No changes would happen before NZ Post had secured new partnerships with other businesses.
‘‘Changes are because how people access banking services is changing. We have 90 per cent of people doing transactions online now, so how banking was when Kiwibank first started out 17 years ago is quite different from how people are banking now,’’ she said.
Tait said customer feedback to Kiwibank indicated that when they went into a branch, they were looking for ‘‘in-depth conversations’’.
She said branches slated to close were ones in close proximity to other Kiwibank outlets.
The bank was opening standalone branches in Thames, Whitianga, Waihi, Matamata, Cambridge, Te Awamutu, Tokoroa, and Lower Hutt.