Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Oct 22/01) - The Bank of Montreal has announced it will close its remaining operations -- a single bank machine and phone line for telephone banking, early next year.

Until 1998, the bank operated a full-service branch in Inuvik, but closed it due to poor profits, said spokesperson Ralph Marranca in Toronto. The bank machine in the lobby of the post office will be shut down Feb. 28.

Marranca said about 500 households in Inuvik currently use the machine. "We expect that a number of them will continue to bank with us through web banking and telephone banking."

Long-time customer John Roland sounded surprised the Bank of Montreal couldn't turn a big enough profit to stay in town.

"With the boom coming up, I would have though they'd have an office up here by now," he said. He speculated that the bank has lost its business because "there's nobody to talk to. You have to phone but it's a pain in the butt."

Meanwhile, Inuvik's only full-service bank -- a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, is planning to expand because of the Bank of Montreal's decision to pull out.

The CIBC operates Inuvik's only full-service branch, including one bank machine.

"We don't have a decision yet on what we will be doing to expand," said Runa Dhar, CIBC spokesperson in Toronto, "but we might add an instant teller machine, or we might add a bank teller -- there will be an increase of some sort."