The people of Murray River have spoken and seem to agree on one thing – closing the local CIBC branch is a bad idea.
More than 100 concerned residents gathered at the Murray River Community Centre on March 15 to take part in a public meeting with representatives from the financial institution.
The crowd, while polite and respectful, didn’t hide its disappointment with CIBC’s decision last December to close the Murray River branch - the area’s only banking centre.
In the December statement, the institution said adjustments to its network were made as a result of a shift in banking practices.
The “adjustment” comes in the form of branch consolidation, where the Murray River branch will be consolidated with the Montague Banking Centre.
The branch, which opened on Sept. 24, 1924, will close its doors on Aug. 23, 2018.
Jon Kastikainen, senior manager of stakeholder communications for CIBC, addressed the audience by reiterating CIBC’s December statement, explaining that 80 per cent of the institution’s transactions are done outside of actual physical banking centres, with more and more people switching to online and telephone banking.
“This is not something that’s unique to CIBC, it’s something that we’ve seen a trend of the last couple of years,” he said. “This is the largest change we’ve seen in our clients needs and how they’re preferring to bank with us since we started over 150 years ago, and we’ve had to make some difficult decisions.”
“How do we get you to stop the closure?” a woman shouted from the crowd.
“The rural (population) is being treated like second class citizens,” added another.
“You call us valued customers? No, no, no, we’re not valued,” said a third.
Kastikainen noted that of CIBC’s 1,100 branches, 34, including the Murray River branch, are closing. He said about a dozen of those are in rural communities.
“We’ve announced a small number of closures across Canada to make sure that we have the right footprint that fits our clients for the years ahead.”
