ANZ notified customers this week that it planned to close seven branches, taking the total number of closures for the year to 19.Most of them are in regional centres, such a Healesville in Victoria and Tamour in New South Wales.A bank spokesperson said the average distance to a nearby branch, for those affected by the latest closures, was 7.5 kilometres.The branches were ones where "there had been a significant decrease in customer use".Staff in the affected branches will not necessarily be made redundant.ANZ appears to be pushing harder than any of the other big four banks to encourage customers to use electronic services for transactions and to turn branches into sales offices.It reported at its recent half-year results briefing that 85 branches have been transformed to a "sales focused format".Four hundred Smart ATMs have been rolled out across the network, resulting in 26 per cent of "targeted transactions" being migrated from branches to these ATMs.The volume of over the counter transactions in branches was down around 10 per cent during the half-year.The spokesperson said: "We need to ensure our branch network reflects how and where our customers are choosing to interact with us. Based on this, we regularly review our network and this means overall branch numbers may fluctuate."