January 19, 2017
Suncorp customers have been urged to “take their business elsewhere” after the company closes its Kingaroy branch on Friday.
Member for Maranoa – and former Suncorp manager – David Littleproud urged residents to support businesses that supported their local town.
“Take your banking and insurance business elsewhere,” he said.
“This blanket closure and total lack of transparency is disgusting.
“Late last year, I learned Suncorp was about to abandon bush customers by closing retail branches, so I urgently requested the bank release its customer usage rates.
“Despite my calls for the bank to be honest and transparent, Suncorp will close its Kingaroy, Miles, Goondiwindi and Stanthorpe retail branches tomorrow and are choosing profits over people by abandoning rural communities in my electorate.”
He said the Bank of Queensland, Heritage Bank and ANZ were also closing branches or mini-branches in Maranoa.
“These four banks are blaming declining customer numbers and the rise of internet banking for the closure decisions but when I challenged them to release customer usage data, all but ANZ refused,” Mr Littleproud said.
“ANZ … revealed it was shutting a branch that people were supporting as the usage rate at Jandowae was 30 per cent – that’s six-times higher than the 5 per cent national average,” he said.
“Suncorp, BoQ and Heritage all refused to reveal these customer usage rate figures so it begs the question: What are they hiding?”
BOQ is closing its Miles branch; Heritage is set to close 26 mini-branches, and ANZ is closing its Jandowae branch.
