After losing two banks in the space of a year, the Terang community is fighting back.
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Disability support agency Cooinda Terang has won almost $20,000 in federal funding to investigate the impact of the closures and recommend possible solutions.
Cooinda chief executive officer Janice Harris said the financial services needs analysis would involve extensive community consultation around how the closures have affected locals.
“Why we really got engaged is that we felt that our participants especially were disadvantaged,” she said.
“A lot of our participants can’t use key cards so they need that interaction of actually going into the bank and having that transaction, and that’s also about community engagement and things like that.”
Ms Harris said a lack of banking options limited participants’ independence.
“They lose that ability to be able to go up the street, get their money, do their budgeting and then maybe go pay some bills or purchase their lunch,” she said.
Terang’s ANZ branch closed in May, 2016. Weeks after the announcement the NAB said it would be reducing its hours and in June this year Terang’s Commonwealth Bank also closed its doors, leaving the town without full banking services.
Since then, the idea of launching a community bank has been floated.
Ms Harris said this was one of the options the analysis would look into.
“One option might be a community bank or something like that. We’ll see what other options there are and what other businesses in the town want and what the needs of the people are and then come up with some recommendations,” she said.
“It might also look at what’s happened in other small towns, what’s been the impact and how they’ve resolved it. It’s just about strengthening local communities.”
Ms Harris said a steering committee would be established and somebody would be appointed to run the project.
It is expected the project would take about six months to complete.
In announcing the funding through the Building Better Regions Fund, Member for Wannon Dan Tehan said the funding would be instrumental in ensuring access to services for ageing, disadvantaged and disabled residents.
“This announcement is a real boost for Terang and their regional community,” Mr Tehan said.
“We know the benefits of this project will also flow throughout the community as it will inform and progress actions to retain and attract services to the town.”