Addressing mostly senior citizens gathered at the Newcastle Institute's September forum on Wednesday night, both Mr Eather and his Greater Bank counterpart, Wayne Russell, emphasised a commitment to both organisations remaining customer-owned, mutual banks.

"We are not doing an NIB, we are not going to our members and trying to turn into a public company. We don't need that, we are not short of capital, to go and make ourselves a public company would take away the very essence of all the things that make us great," Mr Eather said.

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The banking executives were speaking ahead of information booklets being sent to their members ahead of a vote, expected in November, on the merger proposal. It requires approval from members as well as banking regulators.

Under the proposed merger, both brands will remain, serving a customer base of almost 600,000 and there would be no forced redundancies for at least two years, with a similar moratorium on reductions to branch numbers, but not closures of specific branches.

Mr Russell said that there would eventually be changes to branches, because nobody could predict what the future of a branch would look like as technology and society changed.

"In some areas we have branches side by side and it doesn't make sense ... but in some regional areas we have branches side by side but some are significant growth areas, so instead of perhaps having two side by side, you close one and move it another area where there are opportunities to service customers," he said.

Mr Russell said customers would drive changes and the reality was that more customers had become computer literate during lockdowns and the number of transactions at branches "went off a cliff and hadn't bounced back."

Mr Eather said that it would take time to work out how future branches would operate, however even pop-up concepts were a possibility.

"Our executives talk around pop-ups, so rather than bigger shopfronts they might be smaller kiosk styles, [like] those in the US," he said.

Mr Eather said there would always be a place for branches if the merger proceeded, because it was a point of difference to the big four banks.

"We are absolutely committed to branches, they will develop over time but branches and serving you is important so we'll develop ways ways to keep branches open as long as possible," he said.

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