"The reality is we can’t make them [stay open] any more than any other customer can.
"The real challenge is whether the bank can find some way through and just listen to its customers. There might be a way they can use technology and other mechanisms to meet people halfway."
This month, First Union announced the bank was planning to close 19 branches throughout the country.
A "Save Our Bank" protest is scheduled for 1pm today in the car park opposite the Ranfurly bank.
Mr Key also defended his involvement in a rape joke skit on The Rock radio station in December.
The Broadcasting Standards Authority upheld a complaint yesterday about the incident saying it was "inappropriate and in poor taste".
Mr Key said it was a "matter for the radio station".
"I wasn’t aware they were going to do it, I wasn’t aware of the connotations, so in a lot of ways I was just the person who walked into it all."
The comments were made on a trip Mr Key took to Alexandra yesterday to learn about the town.
He began the day by visiting pupils at Dunstan High School.
He was then greeted by Alexandra Primary pupils outside Kidsfirst Alexandra Kindergarten before touring the premises.
There, 4-year-old Fletcher Corderoy asked the pressing question, "How many bees live in the Beehive?"
Mr Key replied there were none, but the American White House had its own bees.
The kindergarten’s head teacher Lisa Lowery said the visit was "special".
"It means a lot. It’s important for us to let the kids play, but some of them did freeze up when he came.
"One little girl got a little mixed up and asked this morning, ‘Is Donald Trump coming to visit?'"
Mr Key said visiting rural education facilities reinforced to him children did not have to live in cities to get a great education.
"I’d be more than happy to send any of my children to any of those facilities we went to today."
Afterwards, he toured shearing sheds at the more-than-20,000ha Earnscleugh Station.
He wanted to do something different while visiting New Zealand’s "rural backbone", the Prime Minister said.
"Shearing is not something that gets the same level of exposure I suppose that maybe dairying and other things do."
He had seen shearing in competitions, but not on the farm itself, he said.
"These people work really really hard."
The shearers were employed by Peter Lyon Shearing which has 240 employees across Otago, Canterbury and Southland.
It is responsible for the shearing of 8million kg of wool from 2million sheep a year, which equates to about $50million to $60million worth.
My Lyon said Mr Key knew a lot of people in the shearing industry from attending shearing competitions.
"So I feel as though I know the guy," the Mr Lyon said.
