Dear Editor,
I think that there were just about as many paid TD Bank employees at the town hall meeting Tues. May14 as the couple of dozen TD Bank clients that were able to attend.
You would have thought that the TD Bank would have advertised the date and time of the meeting if they had wanted people to attend. I could find no advertisement in the local paper, no notices posted in the post office or any local businesses and I looked but didn’t even see any posting in the local branch.
I had to phone into our local branch to get the time of the meeting. On the way into town to attend the meeting I counted nine air drills in the fields and two cowboys out tagging baby calves. So I guess if you wait until the busiest time of the year, hold the meeting on a Tuesday evening right at supper time and do no advertising you can slip in and out of town just about unnoticed.
This demonstrates their level of respect and commitment to our community.
It was indicated by Robert Ghazal that the Coronation branch had been “on the radar for a while” as their market share had been declining but would not say that the branch was not profitable.
It was quickly pointed out by a local farmer, and now a town resident, that “The TD Bank had let FCC eat their lunch when it came to lending. No branch manager and no commercial lending officer meant that we had to go somewhere.”
It was then pointed out, and confirmed by the TD Bank employees present, that the Stettler branch manager has no lending limits and they do not have, and would not commit to having, a commercial lending officer in Stettler.
There were discussions on items such as with no TD Bank branch to make night deposits, every local retailer that receives cash (grocery stores, hardware stores, drug store, restaurants) east of Stettler is now shopping for their banking as they have no choice as you cannot make cash deposits over the internet.
If we want to obtain cash we will have to pay extra service charges to use the ATB bank machine.
I had not considered the mileage factor except from our own farms perspective (for us it is a 250 km round trip to Stettler) but this is going to be a serious factor where there is a foot of snow and it is 40 below.
As pointed out by a Consort resident, it is a proven fact that increased mileage will definitely increase accidents (wildlife strikes alone) and injuries. I am not prepared to put my family on the road that much extra, when we can choose to deal locally.
We are exploring our banking options but time is running out.
Stewart Twa
Veteran, Alta.
