Residents rally for bank return

More than 500 disgruntled Kwinana residents have added their signatures to a petition calling for Bankwest to return to Kwinana.

Dennis Wood has been campaigning in Kwinana since August when the bank announced it would not return to Kwinana after leaving when The Hub closed.

Mr Wood said he was concerned the bank had not taken into consideration the elderly population of Kwinana who he says find electronic banking difficult.

“Most of the people that I know who’ve signed up for this are old, they’re older people and they’re all worried that the long-term residents of the town haven’t got anywhere to go to bank apart from the Commonwealth Bank so there’s only one choice,” he said.

“Even though they indicated they would support possibly setting up an ATM, most of the elderly don’t want to use ATMs.

“Some of the people that signed the form couldn’t even read it properly, so how are they supposed to cope with the ATMs and internet banking.”

Bankwest Retail chief executive Vittoria Short told the Sound Telegraph in August the bank had no plans to return to Kwinana after the reopening of The Hub but Mr Wood is hopeful it will reconsider its decision once it receives the petition.

“I won’t say they were dismissive, that’s the wrong way of putting it because the person I spoke to was very nice but couldn’t help me which was disappointing,” he said.

“I hope they think about coming back again and do something about it.”