Financial Exclusion in Rural and Remote New South Wales, Australia: a Geography of Bank Branch Rationalisation, 1981–98

Abstract

The provision of financial services in rural Australia is a significant public policy issue, reflected in the high level of media and political interest in the recent spate of branch closures. There are, however, many aspects of the current debate regarding the delivery of financial services to rural communities that are, at best, less than ideal and, at worst, erroneous. Using telephone directories for New South Wales, nonmetropolitan bank branch listings for the period 1981 to 1998 were collated. A recategorisation of these data according to the Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas classification reveals, amidst a spatial realignment of financial service provision, that rural and remote New South Wales have been disproportionately affected by a relatively recent and concerted withdrawal of services. The research demonstrates that corporate-level responses to increased competition within the financial system are significantly more important in deciding rural access to banking services than local and regional population trends. Indeed, twothirds of rural localities that have lost branches had experienced healthy population growth during the study period. In the wake of the postderegulation reconfiguration of the bank branch network, the socioeconomic marginalisation of rural communities is being compounded, a process of 'financial exclusion' recognised in other parts of the developed world.The Australian financial sector has been in an almost ceaseless phase of restructuring since its deregulation in 1983. In large part, this restructuring is being driven by the sheer complexity and rapidity of financial trading in the rest of the globe, which itself is being aided by the ongoing revolution in information and communication technologies. During this postderegulation era, the regulatory apparatus and financial institutions central to the Australian financial system have undergone dramatic 182

Rural Transformation and Cultural Industries: Popular Music on the New South Wales Far North Coast

“…This has included polarisation of economic opportunities, access to infrastructure and standards of living of those living in rural and urban areas. Much evidence supports the argument that 'the infrastructure and community life of many rural and remote towns has been slowly pared away' (Sidoti, 2000, VIII), including bank branch closures (Argent and Rolley, 2000a;2000b), restricted access to telecommunications competition and infrastructure (Norlink, 2001), and declining populations in some areas (Murphy, 2000). Across a host of indicators, including household incomes and usage of new information technologies, many residents of rural and remote Australia have not fared well compared with their urban counterparts (Lloyd et al ., 2000;Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1998;.…”

Financial inclusion, universal banking and post offices in Britain

“…Economic and social geographies of everyday life continue to be transformed, both materially and symbolically, by important trends in retail banking services at the global and local scale (Larner and Le Heron 2002). De‐regulation of financial service markets and resultant restructuring have created new patterns of banking service provision, emphasized by bank closures and branch rationalization in Britain (Leyshon and Thrift 1993 1994 1997), the United States (Pollard 1996), Australia (Argent and Rolley 2000), New Zealand (Larner and Le Heron 2002) and elsewhere.…”

Dynamics of Retail‐Bank Branching in Austria

“…Other studies, often qualitatively, describe negative reverberations of consolidation‐induced bank withdrawal on customers and communities, with particular emphasis on financial exclusion due to financial desertification and centralization. From these case studies (regarding the USA, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand ), it can be deduced that the local aspects of structural change in banking deserve more public attention, as it was the case in Great Britain (Midgley, ) or Australia (Argent and Rolley, ). Policy concern, however, has diminished again in some countries.…”