Bankwest will close all its 28 remaining Perth branches by October, and 15 regional branches will be converted to Commonwealth Bank branches.
The shock announcement was made yesterday afternoon despite a Bankwest spokesperson telling The Examiner in January there were no more confirmed branch closures for this year.
“After careful consideration, we’ve made the decision to close the Bankwest branch network by October 2024, with 15 regional branches converting to CommBank branches. We intend to complete these conversions by the end of 2024,” Bankwest’s statement reads.
“As a result, all Bankwest ATMs will also be closing. We no longer operate off-premises ATMs, which means that machines will no longer be maintained following individual branch closures.
“This change enables us to invest in the digital channels the majority of our customers are increasingly choosing to do their banking with us.”
The writing was on the wall for Bankwest’s eventual shift to an exclusively online platform.
For months, the bank has been saying they “expect to operate fewer branches in future” pointing to ‘evolving’ customer demands as justification.
In January, the Armadale branch closed its doors for the last time, and the Maddington branch closure soon followed on February 29.
At the end of last year Bankwest closed its South Perth, Baldivis and Osborne Park branches. And its Subiaco branch was closed in July.
In 2022 they closed every last one of its east coast branches in one fell swoop, affecting up to a million customers.
Then in February last year, the bank announced it would be exiting business banking altogether, with all of its business customers being moved over to Commonwealth Bank products and services.
Bankwest has said no employees would lose their jobs as a result of yesterday’s decision, and that they’d “made a clear commitment to support impacted branch colleagues to access the next generation of banking jobs through dedicated re-skilling programs, so they can continue to serve customers nationwide”.
Bankwest is WA’s oldest lender. It has been a division of Commonwealth Bank since 2008.
