Fairlie’s daily dash for cash

The closure of Fairlie’s only bank last year is costing businesses time and money, just as owners look to profit from a busy tourist season.

In September, Westpac announced Fairlie was one of 19, mostly rural, communities which would lose its Westpac bank.

Despite street protests and community meetings, the only bank in town closed for good in early November, leaving behind just an ATM for people to use.

With Fairlie experiencing a visitor boom, and several new businesses now operating, that ATM ran dry during the busy holiday period.

Barwoods freight company comanager Tracey Cassie said the loss of the bank was a big inconvenience.

‘‘We don’t do banking online, we have to come to Timaru.

‘‘Most of our banking is cashing cheques paid by our clients, and I don’t like having a lot of cheques locked up in our business overnight.’’

Cassie said she could bank cheques at the cash machine.

However she was not happy about ‘‘cheques being left in there for a week. I’d rather travel down to town to do it’’.

‘‘It is what is is, we just have to get on with it. There’s no other way around it.’’

Mint Boutique owner Rebecca Kerr said the lack of a local branch had proven to be a real handicap.

‘‘It’s a huge inconvenience having to go to town once a week to do the banking and find places to get change because you are always running out of change. They don’t want to give you their change because then they won’t have any.’’

Kerr said during the busy Christmas period it was ‘‘every second or third day we were trying to find change for the till’’.

She also wasn’t keen on doing her banking at the ATM. ‘‘I’d rather run it to town and then know it’s banked.’’

Fairlie Bakehouse owner Franz Lieber had managed to get around the bank’s closure, but only because of the how his business functioned.

‘‘I have been going to Timaru anyway to do deliveries, so I pick up cash when I need cash. The courier also brings it back and forth.’’

However, he was having to take out between $4000 and $5000 at a time to keep up with the flow of money through his business.

Moreh Home manager Alison Neill said the bank closure had coincided with the recent largescale expansion of the bakehouse, the opening of a new clothes shop and general store, and a big increase in visitor numbers.

‘‘Had our bank stayed it might have been quite a lot busier than it used to be,’’ Neill said.

Residents of the home had also had to adjust to life after the bank.

‘‘I don’t think it has been quite as difficult as I thought it would be.

‘‘A lot of the older generation are very accepting of going with the flow of modern times,’’ she said.

Mackenzie District Mayor Graham Smith said older residents had benefited from the spirit that prevailed in the country town.

‘‘There’s been good community support for those older folk that aren’t able to come to grips with computers.’’

It hadn’t all been plain sailing though. Smith knew of at least one occasion when the ATM had ‘‘run dry’’ of cash.

Heartland Services Fairlie coordinator Ann Thomson said people had stayed ‘‘pretty optimistic’’ despite the closure.

‘‘There’s a lot of goodwill up here ... people send money with someone else who is going to town (Timaru). We know that because we have done that for people too.

‘‘People help each other out, that’s the main thing.’’

Mackenzie Community College library manager Jackie Phillips said around half a dozen people a week were using an iPad donated by Westpac, located at the library, to do their online banking, in addition to five APNK computers the library already had.