Dankse Bank closure 'a blow for Ballygawley' says local MLA

The Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA said: "This announcement that Dankse Bank in Ballygawley is set to close is a blow to the town and the local economy.

“My thoughts are first and foremost are with the workers impacted and their families. The Dankse Bank must engage fully with its workers and their union representatives and all efforts must be made to redeploy and re-skill workers.

“Lots of people, particularly the elderly, prefer to use the service of a physical bank as opposed to online services.

“This is not only a bank closure, it is another loss of rural services and it will also result in job losses.

“I have requested a meeting with Dankse Bank to discuss this further.”

Commenting on the announcement, Aisling Press, Danske Bank’s Managing Director of Personal Banking, said:

“We shape our business around customer behaviour – and in the last number of years, the way customers use branches has changed considerably. Now, many are choosing to use alternative ways of banking with us, such as our online banking, app or banking on the telephone.

“As a business, we must respond to these changes. This can mean reviewing, and adapting, our investment strategies – sometimes it will include investing more in key branches. Through transformational upgrades, we have invested over £5.5 million in 19 branches across Northern Ireland over the past number of years and we continually look for new opportunities to develop our technology to serve our customers. We are currently planning our next phase of upgrades to key branches across our network and will be investing further in our local branches this year.

“As a prudent business we also need to make difficult decisions to close certain branches that are being used less and are no longer sustainable. We do not make these decisions lightly.

“I have written to our customers in Ballygawley branch to assure them that we remain committed to continuing to meet their banking needs and to share the different ways they can continue to bank with us.

"Over the coming weeks, customers will also be able to get additional support in our Ballygawley and Dungannon branches and from our customer contact centre. Our ‘Step by Step’ guide, with guidance on how to use other ways of banking, will be available in the affected branches, or this can be printed on request at any branch or following a phone call.

“If any of our customers have additional concerns, I would encourage them to please speak to us - we will do everything we can to support them through this change.”

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