The great pruning of the bank branches
effect of branch closures on small rural towns in the 1990s, a decade in which 40 per cent of all bank branches shut.
Matthews found the impact on small towns was smaller than expected, as customers compensated by switching to phone banking and eftpos.
‘‘The impact of branch closures can be overstated,’’ she said.
In her paper, published in 2000, she noted that the number of bank branches in New Zealand fell from 1551 as at September 30, 1993 to 866 as at the end of 1999.
Matthews lives in the small town of Pahiatua, near Palmerston North, famous for the Tui Brewery on its outskirts, and has watched as every bank branch closed.
‘‘The small towns around me all had bank branches. My own community was one of the last ones to have them, and in the last 12 to 18 months, we have lost the last of the branches,’’ she said.
There were still three ATMs in town.
KPMG’s figures showed the number of bank-owned ATMs had also been dropping.
Reserve Bank assistant governor Christian Hawkesby said in a speech in October: ‘‘This is particularly evident in rural communities on the West Coast of the South Island where there is only one bank ATM located between Wanaka and Hokitika – a distance of 418 kilometres.’’
Kenneth Arnold lives and runs his business, White Heron Sanctuary Tours, on that road, and he’s sanguine about it.
Arnold, who takes tourists to see the rare white ko¯tuku herons in the Waitangiroto Nature
Reserve, is based in Whataroa, and he and his customers have gone virtually cashless.
‘‘We are becoming a cashless society. If you are operating a business in this day and age, you have to take all forms of payment, but cash is the least common of the way people pay,’’ Arnold said.
His nearest cashpoint is a BNZ ATM in Franz Josef 30km away, but distance was not a bother for him.
‘‘The next ATMs are in Hokitika, and that’s only another 100kms, and then there’s Greymouth. There’s still bank branches there,’’ Arnold said.
Such trips are a fact of life in many rural towns.
Matthews did her banking online, but when she recently had to go into a branch to confirm her identity, she had to drive 30km to Palmerston North.
Though the big banks were still closing urban branches, they have agreed to hold off on rural branch closures for the rest of the year, until a banking ‘‘hub’’ trial has been completed.
Banking hubs were shared services provided by banks working together centred around a cluster of smart ATMs overseen by a bank worker to show people how to access the services they needed.
ASB, ANZ, BNZ, Kiwibank, TSB and Westpac customers could use the hubs to perform basic banking transactions, and there was a phone line for phone banking, if they needed it.
The hubs were being trialled in: Twizel, South Canterbury; Nelson; O¯ punake, Taranaki; and
Martinborough, Wairarapa.
BNZ has two mobile branches touring small towns in Waikato and on the West Coast.
In January, small-town mayors from around the country called for the provision of banking services in rural areas to be part of the conditions of banks being allowed to do business.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson has encouraged banks to roll the hub model out nationwide to ensure access to banking services.