Yahoo Finance Coles stops giving cash out in store
Cash-out services are no longer on offer for residents of this Aussie town, and the nearest bank is 800km away.
A Coles in Western Australia has stopped offering cash-out services after the Kununurra supermarket was inundated with demand following the shutting of banks in the town.
A Coles spokesperson told Yahoo Finance the store would no longer offer cash-out services in the East Kimberley town, where some residents are facing an 800-kilometre journey to the closest bank. This is the only store in Australia with this policy.
The supermarket typically allows customers to withdraw up to $300 at self-service checkouts, or up to $400 at staffed checkouts or service desks.
Are you worried about your access to cash? Contact tamika.seeto@yahooinc.com
It comes as Commonwealth Bank (CBA) subsidiary Bankwest announced it would be permanently closing its Kununurra branch and ATM on April 18 due to ongoing staffing challenges in the area and the need for minimum safety and security requirements. NAB and Westpac also closed their doors in September and October 2022 due to staffing issues.
Last week, the town’s last operating bank, CBA, was reportedly closed due to a vandalism attack on the premises in mid-January where glass doors and two ATM screens were found smashed.
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“While Coles usually offers the convenience of facilitating cash-out for our customers, due to the increase in demand, we have made the decision to pause the option of cash-out at our Kununurra store,” a Coles spokesperson told Yahoo Finance.
“We understand this is a challenging time for the community, however, we are not operationally equipped to handle large volumes of cash.”
The Coles is one of only two supermarkets in the town, along with IGA Tuckerbox.
Isolated Aussies left with few cash options
Bank customers are currently able to use Australia Post’s Bank@Post services to do basic everyday transactions, including depositing and withdrawing cash, however there are daily limits on these transactions.
According to The Kimberley Echo, NAB, Bankwest and Westpac customers, who want to withdraw large sums of cash or close accounts, now have to travel more than 800 kilometres to Darwin or more than 1,000 kilometres away to Broome.
A man recently spoke out after driving 130km to get $300 cash from his bank in Western Australia and was refused, while Brisbane woman Taryn Comptyn said she struggled to withdraw $3,500 to pay for renovations on her home.
About 420 bank branches across Australia closed in the year to June 2023, according to APRA, including 122 branches in regional and remote areas.
Coles customers have previously told Yahoo Finance about their frustration with dwindling cash options in the city. But the major supermarket isn’t the only big business to take a step away from physical currency, with McDonald’s going cashless in a small number of stores due to anti-social behaviour.
Even smaller businesses in crime-plagued areas, like Annee's Caphê Sua Da in North Queensland, decided to get rid of cash after a break-in so "shaken up" staff felt safer at work.
But a complete shift away from cash has its downsides too. Wider issues were exposed during last year’s Optus outage, when many businesses across the country were brought to a halt as connectivity issues impacted EFTPOS and banks.
Cash withdrawals not Coles’ ‘primary business’
RMIT associate professor of finance Dr Angel Zhong told Yahoo Finance physical bank branches were closing across the country, including in major cities and regional areas, as Australia moved towards a functionally cashless society.
For regional and rural areas in particular, this is pushing the burden of providing cash onto other businesses including Coles and Australia Post.
Australia Post, for instance, recently revealed it was spending about $4,000 a week to fly cash to Coober Pedy in South Australia to make sure residents had access to cash.
“Businesses need to consider a lot of factors when making operational decisions because they need to balance how they make profit. [With Coles] it’s also about security concerns for staff,” Zhong said.
“But, to some extent, it is essential to ensure that essential services like access to cash are available to residents. Without these alternative options, this decision - not just by Coles but by other banks - will potentially leave people in that area without a convenient [option] to obtain physical currency.”
Zhong also noted that Coles offering cash withdrawals to customers was not the supermarket’s “primary business”.
“It is really important for businesses - especially banking businesses, whose primary business is providing access to financial matters - and community leaders to work together to find solutions that balance that need for security but also for operational efficiency for essential services,” she said.
Some cash advocates have called for legislation to force supermarkets, pharmacies and convenience stores to carry physical cash, as is being considered in Ireland.
Australia to be ‘cashless’ by 2030
Zhong predicts Australia will become functionally cashless by 2030, as more consumers move towards digital payment options over cash. The share of consumer payments using cash has plunged from 70 per cent in 2007 to just 13 per cent in 2022, according to the Reserve Bank.
“I’m not saying that we won’t see cash at all and I’m not saying that cash will lose its value,” Zhong told Yahoo Finance. “It’s more about the choice of consumers because, when we look at the statistics, we see the rise in consumer preference in using digital payments.”
Zhong said this transition presented a challenge for regional and rural areas due to a lack of infrastructure.
“If we want to embrace this shift in technology, it's really important that we recognise the challenges faced by rural areas with slow internet and for the government to increase spending and community leaders to increase investment in infrastructure,” Zhong said.
“I believe that government and private entities can work together to invest in better internet infrastructure to improve connectivity so that rural areas are not left behind in this inevitable transition.”
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