It is one of four locations being shut nationwide as more customers shift to digital banking, a spokesperson for SBS told The News.
The Cromwell branch, along with branches in Hamilton and Timaru, will close tomorrow. A branch in the Invercargill suburb of Windsor closed at the end of May.
The moves were part of what the bank described as a response to changing customer behaviour and declining in-person visits.
"Across the banking landscape, consumer expectations and preferences, including among our members, are shifting towards digital banking solutions," the spokesperson said in the statement.
"This is reflected in low utilisation of these branches in particular."
Although the total number of jobs impacted was not declared, the spokesperson said a majority of Cromwell staff had been "redeployed into other roles" with the bank, including the branch manager, who would take over as manager of the branch in Queenstown, located in the Five Mile Shopping Centre.
While local clients of the bank had been communicated with directly on the imminent closure, the first some others in the community heard of it was via Facebook marketplace, where furniture from the branch had appeared for sale in recent weeks.
The SBS bank spokesperson said the bank continued to operate branches at locations around the country, but many people chose not to use them, instead interacting with the bank in other ways, including through its seven-day-a-week contact centre.
The closure marked another blow to Cromwell’s town centre, which had lost several bank branches in recent years.
In 2021, the Bank of New Zealand closed, hot on the heels of Kiwibank.
