26 April, 2023
That’s it then...
After more than 130 years as part of the Clifton district, the last local bank branch in the town closed last week.
The Clifton branch of the National Australia Bank (NAB) finally closed its doors at 12.30pm last Thursday, 20th April.
The bank first opened in the town 131 years ago, in 1892, when it was a branch of the Queensland National (QN) Bank Limited.
This was just 20 years after the bank began operating in Brisbane.
QN Bank was taken over by the National Bank of Australia in 1948.
That bank merged with the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney in 1981 and became the National Australia Bank - more commonly known in its abbreviated form, NAB.
NAB retained its Clifton branch for many years after the closure of the other main bank branch in the town - the Bank of New South Wales, later Westpac, but inevitably, the town is now without a full service bank branch.
Local customers of NAB have been told they can transact business at the Clifton Post Office or can utilise full service branches in Toowoomba or Warwick.
The last customer to be served at the Clifton branch was Robyn Keates of Clifton.
Over the years changes in banking led to changes in staffing - at one time there were nine employees, including two trainees,
but at the end just two staff were employed in the branch.
This was unfortunate because as the service offered by NAB wound down at Clifton, if one of the employees was unable to make it to work, due to illness or being flood-bound, the bank didn’t even bother to send relief staff from Toowoomba or Warwick, and the branch simply closed for the day.
Big banks don’t care.
