Another New Brunswick community is about to join the growing list of bank branches closing its doors for good.
The Scotiabank in Chipman, N.B., informed Mayor Edward Farris of its primed closure in the fall on Thursday.
“We had no warning at all about it,” said Farris. “It was just a surprise to whole community.”
The branch will be consolidated with another Scotiabank about a 20 minute drive away.
It’s a big deal for the small community that currently only has the one bank in the village.
“There’s people that are going to have to travel a long ways to do their banking,” said resident Carlotta Dollard.
“Some of the people can't drive so they'll have to have a vehicle to go, and they’re in the low income,” said resident Ron Boudreau.
Mayor Farris is concerned about seniors being left without a hometown bank. He says the village will try to encourage another banks to come and set up shop, but he's not feeling hopeful.
“I think all banks are announcing they’re doing big cutbacks,” said Farris.
Several small-town banks have closed over the last year, and more are set to. The CIBC branch in Nackawic, N.B., will close in April. Scotiabank will also close a Fredericton branch in September.
The bank indicated last year it was moving towards closing Scotiabank branches across the country.
In a statement to CTV News, Scotiabank says the branch closure is due to what it calls “significant changes to how people are doing banking.”
Scotiabank says it will work with customers to transfer, and also encourage customers to sign up for online banking.
But it’s not everybody's cup of tea.
“I don’t trust it,” said Dollard. “If hackers can get into the government's computers, they can get into ours too.”
Ideas are being floated about what this community will do before the Chipman bank closes on Oct. 6.
“We hope that we can do something, but it doesn’t look good,” said Farris.
Scotiabank is planning its own meeting in Chipman on March 8 to talk about the branch closure.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Nick Moore.
