Rochester Community Bank pop-up site brings over-the-counter banking back to the community

Residents of Rochester and surrounding areas will once again have access to face-to-face banking services after recent flooding forced the closure of the Community Bank Rochester Branch. The pop-up site will be located at 35 Moore St, just 260 meters from the existing Branch.

The full-service site will be able to provide over-the-counter banking, including cash withdrawals, deposits, insurance enquiries, business banking and lending.

Brad Drust, Chair of Lockmore Financial Services - which operates the Community Bank Elmore Lockington and Rochester - said the Community Bank and Bendigo Bank teams had been working tirelessly to stand up a new site for local customers and businesses and expected services would be available within the fortnight.

“From providing free coffees for locals and volunteers, waiving fees to conduct banking at Bank@Post, ensuring we’ve had a daily staff presence at the Rochester recovery centre and working with the local business community to stand up this pop-up site, we’ve had our customer’s and community’s back since the floods hit,” Mr Drust said.

“A small re-fit of the pop-up site will occur over the next two weeks to ensure the site is safe for customers. I’d like to thank the landlord for being so understanding and allowing us to use the new site until repairs and rectification work to our normal branch are finalised and we are back up and running early next year in our usual location.”

“We know the recovery will take time and we’ll be right alongside our community with further support for as long as it takes,” Mr Drust concluded.

James Pietromonaco, Manager at the Bank’s Elmore, Lockington, and Rochester branches said his team were looking forward to seeing their Rochester customers at the new pop-up site.

“Our local community has been hard hit by the recent floods, and the last thing we want customers and local businesses to worry about is not being able to conveniently conduct their banking locally,” Mr Pietromonaco said.

“We can’t wait to see our regular customers back in branch very soon, and hopefully some new customers too.”

Bendigo Bank will also be waiving fees for local customers to use the United Petrol Station’s ATM until the pop-up site is up and running.

For more information on Bendigo Bank’s Assistance Package visit: Natural disaster assistance package

To donate to Bendigo Bank’s Flood Appeal, visit: Flood Appeal on the Community Enterprise Foundation site.

Customers can stay up to date with the latest developments at https://www.facebook.com/communitybankelmorelockingtonrochester/