The Hughenden community is in uproar after the news the town would downsize to two banks.

Although the ANZ ATM will remain in town, the customer service branch will close making the closest branch 240 kilometres away, in Charters Towers.

Flinders Shire Council Mayor, Jane McNamara, said the bank would close on October 18 to allow customers time to decide if they would stay with ANZ or change banks.

“This change will leave us with only a NAB bank and Commonwealth agency,” Cr McNamara said.

“It is very unfortunate the way this news all unfolded because ANZ have a protocol they need to follow and somehow this information was leaked into the community.

“So I felt for the staff last week, as they had to deal with angry customers, because they found out through the grapevine.”

Cr McNamara said ANZ had a downturn in customers over the last 10 years.

“I did ask how many customers they had and they said about 200 but only 15 per cent actually use the bank,” she said.

“With this day and age of technology more people are doing their banking online.

“Obviously ANZ is conducting a restructure and auditing country branches, and those branches that have less money going into them are closing.”

Cr McNamara and Member for Mount Isa Robbie Katter have approached other banks to see if they would be interested in opening a branch in Hughenden.

Bendigo Bank was the first approached but they will also be contacting Suncorp this week, along with other banks.

The news comes just weeks after Springsure customers were notified that ANZ would be withdrawing from their community.