Port au Choix BMO branch shuts down after 58 years, adding to series of rural bank closures

Another small town in Newfoundland and Labrador is losing its local bank.

The BMO branch in Port au Choix, N.L., will officially close on July 25.

The Northern Peninsula community's BMO was in operation for 58 years, said Port au Choix Mayor Donald Spence, who called the loss "devastating."

"This can't be right," Spence said. "This is crazy."

BMO, one of the largest banking institutions in North America, blames the town's small population of about 740, loss of business and the prominence of online banking as reasons for its decision to close its Port au Choix branch.

Spence told CBC News that although Port au Choix's population is small, a lot of people still depend on the bank's service. Those people include seniors and small business owners like himself. 

"I run everything through BMO," said Spence. "The town is doing business with them, [the] harbour authority is doing business with them, Sea Echo — that's every business in town, just keeping the community afloat."

The mayor said he thinks the bank's closure will have a "chain effect" throughout the town. Residents as far as Roddickton, which is 143 kilometres away, had to travel to Port au Choix for financial services, and would stop at local businesses along the way.

Now that the bank is gone, Spence fears that stream of visitors will die down. 

He also doesn't buy BMO's claim of not being busy enough to serve Port au Choix.

"Fifty-eight years of service in town here and they just pull out like that," said Spence. "I just think it's a big corporation's greed."

The Port au Choix town council is planning on presenting a letter to BMO in hopes of restoring in-person financial services.

'Detrimental' to community 

Dwanna Dobbin is the owner and pharmacist at the PharmaChoice Pharmacy in Port au Choix, which sits next door to the bank. She anticipates she will lose customers as a result of the closure.

"People come here if the bank is closed for dinner. They'll come here and shop for the hour that they're waiting … they make a trip of it," Dobbin told CBC News.

"If they close the bank, I feel it would be detrimental to the town of Port au Choix," she said.

The nearest BMO branch to Port au Choix is in Deer Lake, which is over a two-hour drive away. Dobbin is concerned for the seniors in her community who now have to learn how to do online banking because they can't travel that far. 

"Have you ever tried to call the bank over the phone? It's not easy," she said.

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