BANK branches continue to close across regional Australia, with Westpac Bank announcing that the Bridgetown, Collie, Tom Price and Wongan Hills branches will shut at the end of the year.
This has been met with disappointment from locals, especially for those near Wongan Hills, as the next closest bank is 200 kilometres away.
In the Shire of Wongan-Ballidu, 35 per cent of the population is over the age of 65 years and according to shire president Mandy Stephenson "can't do the 200km turnaround", creating a massive barrier for residents.
The shire held an emergency community meeting, which had about 50 people attend, ranging from business owners to locals and "people who needed cash".
The bank closure will also affect volunteer groups, who need to change the signatories on all the accounts every time there is a new change.
"So for a volunteer, they now need to drive 200km just for a signatory to continue volunteering in town," Ms Stephenson said.
"It's going to be hard and a massive, big barrier for our community."
Ms Stephenson said the community was in shock, especially seniors who weren't able to easily convert to online banking.
As a result, the shire is considering running a weekly bus service to Northam, which has the next nearest bank, to help seniors who aren't able to drive the distance.
"It's just devastating for the Wheatbelt," Ms Stephenson said.
"The country and the Wheatbelt community are feeling like we don't matter and it's just disappointing because the money that's in the banks is actually from our agricultural customers.
"We're a very rich area, we contribute as an agricultural area, which is
good for their stakeholders but they're just not worrying about that."
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Shire of Bridgetown Shire acting chief executive officer Phillip St John said he agreed, as his area also has a 35pc senior population, compared to the 23pc national average.
"We believe this means the need for local banks to provide across-the-counter services is perhaps more critical in Bridgetown," Mr St John said.
"We are gravely concerned that a decision like this might disadvantage some of the seniors in our community."
The Bridgetown area is also experiencing strong population growth, which Mr St John said was a good reason for the bank to remain open.
Bridgetown has grown by 12.4pc in the past five years, which is one of the highest in the region.
"We expect this to continue in future years with the strong demand for housing being driven by the mining sector," he said,
A Westpac Group spokesperson said that with five million digitally active customers and declining customer use of branches, sometimes they have to "take a difficult decision" to leave a branch location.
"In these instances, we continue to support our customers by expanding access via digital and online banking, Bank@Post, telephone, mobile and virtual banking," they said.
The option for banking through the local post office has been flagged as a possibility for these areas, and discussions with local shires and Westpac are ongoing.
