The Commonwealth Bank has joined the rush and will temporarily close 114 branches from Thursday across the country as customer traffic continues to fall because of social distancing and the impact of the COVID-19 crisis.
The banks are finding that customers are doing more online or telephone banking, while cash transactions at ATMs have fallen sharply.
Following similar closures from its big four rivals, CBA on Wednesday confirmed it would redeploy about 500 of its branch staff to work in call centres or online operations and temporarily close branches around the country.
“Since the pandemic was declared in early March, we have received more than one million calls and online requests for help. In particular, calls to our hardship line have increased by 800 percent compared to the period before the pandemic,” a bank spokesman said.
The bank said most of the branches affected were in cities, and the vast majority of closures would be in a location within five kilometres of an operating CBA branch.
The NAB has closed around 70 branches temporarily and the ANZ has made a similar move with 90 branches.
Westpac has temporarily closed about 90 Westpac, St George, Bank of Melbourne and BankSA branches.
All the banks have started reviews of their operating processes and structures in the night of the rapid move online and it would not surprise if some of these branches do not re-open.
