Peter Dunsdon has been appointed as manager of the Greater Building Society’s Cessnock branch.

Mr Dunsdon has 37 years experience in the financial service industry. He said he is looking forward to meeting local people and offering them a real alternative to the major banks by providing very competitive rates, low fees and superior service.

Mr Dunsdon said the Greater is seeing an increase in the number of new members. In the past financial year it experienced a 100% in the number of people coming to it to refinance an existing loan compared with the previous year.

Meanwhile the Greater has installed its first ATM in neighbouring Kurri Kurri, in the new Coles’ development.

He said that the ATM will provide the Greater’s growing number of local customers with more convenient access to their money across the Coalfields.

The new ATM is the Greater’s 99th. Greater customers also have direct fee free access to almost 4,000 rediATMs across Australia, including one in Kurri.

“We have been growing our own ATM network at around 10 per cent over the past couple of years and we are still looking at sites for additional ATMs to meet our growing customers’ needs,” Mr Dunsdon said.

“We are always looking to help our members to avoid fees and help make accessing their money even more convenient,” he said.

Customers can search for ATMs via ATM locators on the Greater’s and rediATM’s websites as well as the Greater’s free iphone application. rediATM also has an SMS locator service and an iphone application.

The Cessnock branch opened 31 years ago in 1980. It relocated to its current location at Cessnock Plaza in February 2007. The branch employs eight staff.

Media information: Craig Eardley on 0437477493.