As the dawn mist settles during an early morning in Carnarvon, Pamela Greenup prepares for another busy day ahead running the town's only lottery outlet and newsagent.
Her shop is a centre point of the community, where locals often gather and chat as they go about their day.
But Ms Greenup said running a business in the town had been a point of frustration for months, since her local bank closed without warning.
"Especially when you're trying to run a business … we need cash for payouts, especially after a big superdraw," she said.
"So, if you don't have a bank, and the post office charges you if you want to change orders, then it makes life a little bit tricky."
Recently, Bankwest announced it would be scaling back the opening hours of 29 WA regional branches.
However, in Carnarvon, Bankwest said their branch had been closed for months due to staff shortages.
Bankwest has been referring customers to Australia Post to do their banking.
However, Carnarvon's Australia Post was the target of a smash-and-grab crime spree in August.
Ms Greenup said business owners needed a better solution.
"The small person and the small business don't really have an awful lot to say," she said.
"We can beg and plead all we want but, at the end of the day, it comes down to the bank's decision."
Parliamentary petition
The number of regional 'big four' banks looks set to slip below 1,000 by the end of the year — a reduction of nearly two-thirds of their network since 1975.
Earlier this week, a task force established to investigate the impact of bank branch closures on regional communities was disbanded before releasing its final report.
Journalist Dale Webster has launched a federal parliamentary petition calling for an immediate moratorium on bank closures and said a senate inquiry was needed.
"Just this week another five towns were told that their banks were closing," she said.
"If there was a moratorium, they may have a chance of saving those banks and an inquiry. It just needs to be looked at properly."
Ms Webster's investigative work into the closure of the 'big four' banks across regional Australia was the winner of this year's June Andrews Award for Freelance Journalist of the Year.
"With the help of some records that my father gave me before he died, I was able to find a starting point to measure the regional banking network, which has never been done before. So the peak of that network was around 1975," she said.
"So using that document, I started putting together a complete list of what was there."
A social responsibility
Both Pamela Greenup and Dale Webster know all too well about the impact a bank has on a town.
Ms Greenup moved to Australia in the 1960s when her father began working at what was the R&I bank on Barrack Street in Perth.
"We came out on the ship in 1969, so we've been with Bankwest for a very long time," she said.
Dale Webster grew up living behind banks in regional towns on the east coast.
Her father, Roly Webster, was a bank manager.
Ms Webster said she remembered a local bringing his new-found golden nugget that he'd discovered at the bottom of a local river to her father to keep in the bank's safe.
"It's not just putting money in. It's a safe place for valuables in a town," she said.
Shams Pathan is an Associate Professor of Finance at Curtin University and agreed banks needed to be held more accountable.
"They're also a place where businesses receive advice and where essential documents can be safely stored," Dr Pathan said.
Ms Webster's parliamentary petition was open for signatures until October 6, 2022.
"We're now at 64 per cent of the network gone, that's up 2 per cent from when I put the application in," she said.
"And there are still three months left of this year, so anything could happen."
Ms Greenup supported calls for a senate inquiry.
"Please help, because we're here for the community and the community are the people who run this country," she said.
