Six local Bank of Ireland branches close today and with them goes their 24-hour ATM services.
Premises at Urlingford, Thomastown, Callan, Graiguenamanagh, Tullow and Borris are among the 88 in the Republic of Ireland to shut their doors.
The financial institution confirmed to KCLR that cash withdrawal will be available to customers through An Post outlets as well as at 169 branches that remain open across the country and where external machines are being retained. (See full statement below).
But Callan Cllr Joe Lyons, who runs a shop in the town, has been telling The Way It Is that that’s not good enough while he had further news on the stance of the area’s financial services offering too.
Listen back to his conversation with our Sue Nunn in full here:
Bank of Ireland previously issued the following statement to KCLR News:
“When those Bank of Ireland branches close on October 8th it includes decommissioning the ATMs. However, through our new partnership with An Post, cash withdrawal will be available to Bank of Ireland customers at the local Post Office during normal opening hours including a half day on Saturdays. We will also continue to operate 169 branches nationwide, the vast majority of which have an External ATM which can be used for cash withdrawal and cash and cheque lodgement 24/7.
Like many other companies with a large number of retail locations, and like banks across the globe, we had to change our branch services to better reflect how people are banking today. Customers have been moving away from cash to cards and digital banking, and this has rapidly accelerated in recent years. Customers are also choosing ‘cashback’ – where they take the opportunity to get cash back in shops when making purchases – and there are also an increasing number of businesses, including taxis, now taking card payments”.
While AIB issued this statement:
“In recent years, we’ve seen an unrelenting reduction in some of the ways our customers use our branches. More customers are banking online, using our mobile app and making contactless payments. Customers are now interacting with our digital app more than 1.54 million times a day, compared with 35,000 daily branch visits. At the same time, we’ve found that there has been a 39% decline in branch cash transactions since 2019.
As a result, we have written to customers in our Callan branch to inform them that from the 29th November we will no longer offer transactions over the counter such as cash, cheques, coin, foreign exchange and bank drafts. All of these transactions will still be available at High Street Kilkenny, 17 km away or at any other full-service AIB branch.
Customers can continue to use our cash and cheque lodgement machines to deposit cash and cheques, to withdraw money, and our dedicated team will still be on hand to help. Additionally, with AIB at An Post we will continue to support customers at their local post office in Callan, 200 metres away, where they can carry out the majority of their day-to-day banking transactions.
Customers can also use digital alternatives and, in the case of businesses, AIB Merchant Services.
At AIB we are committed to our branch network, have a strong presence in the communities we serve and with 170 branches continue to have the largest branch network in the country.
As previously announced, some of AIB’s branches are evolving towards sales and advisory services. These services, which will be retained at our Callan branch, include personal and SME account opening and lending, mortgage lending, deposits and investments, general insurance, customer service queries and domestic and international payments. Customers with any questions can contact us online, over the phone, on social media or in branch where we will be happy to help them.”