The Bingara community was left in despair in March when National Australia Bank announced its closure of the local branch, but many spirits were lifted a month later when Regional Australia Bank decided to trial extended trading hours.
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Nearing the end of the three month trial, the community-owned bank invited the community to a barbecue lunch last Friday.
“We are committed to supporting towns in Regional Australia who support us, and we encourage residents of Bingara who want these services to remain in their town, to consider switching their lending and voting with their feet,” Regional Australia Bank’s Bingara branch manager Bronte Egan said.
Shirley Brien has lived in Bingara since she was born. With Phil, her husband of 43 years, she runs the town’s bus service.
The couple have been around long enough to have plenty of experience of local banks closing. Long-time Westpac customers, they switched to NAB 13 years ago following the closure of Westpac’s Bingara branch.
“At first we were happy with NAB,” Shirley said.
“We had a good business banker and we could ring him and get things sorted out quickly. But then they kept cycling through staff and, while they were all nice enough, you never had much of a relationship with them.”
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As NAB continued to scale back their services, the couple started driving to the Inverell branch to do their business banking.
“Despite the signs being on the wall, I was disappointed when NAB closed the branch,” Shirley said.
“It seemed like they didn’t care about the town, didn’t care about the elderly residents who would go in there to withdraw their pension money every fortnight.”
Following NAB’s departure, she switched her banking to Regional Australia Bank. Now she’s urging her fellow Bingarans to consider following in her footsteps.
“It’s the last bank in town,” she said.
“Not only do we want to keep it here, we’d also like it to open for longer, provide more employment opportunities and donate even more to community organisations. It’s a bank that gives a lot to Bingara and it makes sense for the community to patronise it.”
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Ms Egan said the bank has responded to concerns about NAB leaving Bingara by meeting the calls of the community and trialing extended trading hours, hosting community events like Friday’s barbecue and by making the switch to Regional Australia Bank easy.
Regional Australia Bank’s Bingara branch is open from 10am-3pm on Tuesday, Thursday and 12 pm – 3 pm Friday. It is located at 39 Maitland Street.
