DR CHET SPEVENS | Finance Expert | CONTACT
Tanbarrar may be a quaint regional village set amongst gorgeous desert landscapes but its residents are finding it difficult to meet their basic modern day banking needs.
Take local sausage dog Reiki Healer and K9 Makeup Artist Dominque Pork, who has lived and worked in the village her whole life. To run her small business she needs to deposit and withdraw cash several times a week. However due to bank closures she now travels 2 hours down Old Carton Hwy to Betoota City to do her banking.
“It’s not sustainable,” Pork said while applying purple eyeliner to a cute sausage dog.
“Here we do our banking with cash, deposits with paper cheques, face-to-face stuff,” she explained while removing a smudge of green lipstick that had somehow run up the K9’s whiskers.
It’s reported that 30% of branches have closed over the last 5 years in the regions, with the pace of closures accelerating. To justify this phenomenon, Australian Banking Association chief executive Anna Bligh explained that regional branches are closing because only strange country bumpkins continue to actually go into a physical bank.
“I don’t want to pigeon-hole an entire people, but if you’ve never left Betoota City and seen these weirdos for yourself, you wouldn’t believe me,” Bligh said in awe.
“They’re the strangest humans imaginable. Most haven’t even heard of online banking,” she shook her head in disbelief.
Bligh explained that banks save millions of dollars by closing branches that are only used by inbred, banjo-playing cattle farmers that are so poor it’s laughable.
She told the Advocate that these savings add to the record profits the sector makes each year. While the economics of branch closures is clear, it’s cold comfort for weirdo country people like sausage dog worker Pork, who sees this as just another way the banks favour city slickers.
“They keep the city branches open don’t they? Life’s easy for them with their tall buildings and their cool air machines.” She spread foundation across her sausage dog’s abdomen before running her hands slowly over the air above it.
“Dogs hold so much negative tension in their stomachs,” she said before giving the creature a kiss on the hind legs.”
More to come.
