Save our branch from closure

A petition with as many as 618 signatures was handed in to senior representatives of the Raiffeisenbank in Oberägeri on Thursday in an attempt to prevent it from being closed. Whether this will have any effect is not sure.

It was at the AGM of the Aegeri-Sattel district of the Raiffeisenbank in March that the cooperative announced it would be closing the Oberägeri branch at number 42 Hauptstrasse at the end of 2019, whereupon a number of clients set up an action group in an attempt to have it saved, hence this petition.

Klaus Bilang, who was instrumental in setting-up the petition, and who can be seen on the right in the photograph handing it over to Erik Müller, the chairman of the board of management (on the left) and Michael Iten the chairman of the board (in the centre), said that people from all over the Aegeri Valley and Sattel, from all echelons of society, representing a wide range of professions and political parties, had signed it.

The petitioner also pointed out the numerous reasons why there was such a strong feeling locally that this branch should remain open, not least because it dates back to 1937, and, along with the branch in Menzingen-Neuheim, is the oldest in the canton. “The service provided at the counter is very much appreciated,” he said, “particularly by those involved in business.” Petitioners felt the board’s strategy was not forward-looking and goes against Raiffeisen’s own principle that branches were there for the convenience of the local community.

Even the former manager of the branch, Marcel Vock, who was also present on the occasion of the handing-in of the petition, said that closure was happening between five and ten years too early. Furthermore, Dora Züger-Nussbaumer, whose father held a senior position at the bank for a long time, said that closure meant departure from the basic principles held by its founder, Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen.

For their part, Iten and Müller said they would evaluate the arguments behind the petition and that they were “open to anything” adding, however, that it was also part of their job to assure members of the cooperative that it would be run economically. They also pointed out that the ATM would remain there, that advice to customers could be provided in their own homes and that those with mobility problems who needed to go to the branch in Unterägeri would be chauffeured there free of charge by Tixi-taxi.

The bank further pointed out that, on average, only five people a week came to the branch in Oberägeri to ask for financial advice with only 20 clients coming in to pay money in or take it out.

What the bank did concede was that they could have communicated news about the closure in a better way, but they had felt it only right to inform members of the bank first and only afterwards other clients, the authorities and public at large. They apologised for not having mentioned the closure of the Oberägeri branch in the original invitation to the AGM.