ANZ Bank appears to be accelerating its branch rationalisation program after quietly signalling moves to shut another five retail outlets across Victoria.The decision has raised concerns among regional councils that unstable internet connectivity in their areas will put transaction certainty at risk for ANZ merchants being asked to rely on cashless payments methods.The latest closures have taken several rural communities by surprise, particularly in the central Victorian tourist town of Daylesford where ANZ will close its doors on 29 August.Daylesford is part of the Hepburn Shire and the local mayor John Cottrell is worried small businesses that bank with ANZ will be saddled with cash-handling challenges when internet and other electronic outages occur."Connectivity is a really big issue for businesses throughout the shire - eftpos outages are not uncommon," he said."The internet problems make online and mobile banking difficult for consumers when services drop out."ANZ has closed 25 branches across Australia so far in 2018, with the majority in the group's home market of Victoria.Other regional Victorian branches earmarked for closure in August are Drysdale and Corryong, along with metropolitan outlets in Balaclava and Donvale.The push by ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliot to put the bank on a digital footing runs a potential risk of undermining the company's physical connection to communities where its brand has been a traditional feature of Victorian streetscapes.It is also likely to erode ANZ's role as a business banker in growth towns like Daylesford where small businesses in the hospitality and retail sectors still require night safe services to secure their cash takings.ANZ's departure will probably result in business customers shifting their accounts to CBA and a Bendigo community bank, which each still offer branch services in the town.While Cottrell acknowledged that business customers were likely to move to Bendigo and CBA, he said academic research showed that branch closures had immediate negative impacts on rural centres."I'm sure more businesses will move to the community bank, but every town's economy gets hurt when any bank closes a branch," he said.An ANZ spokesman said customers with accounts at the Daylesford branch and outlets in other communities where over-the-counter services would soon be withdrawn, were increasingly using online channels to do their banking."We have been responding to this change by making sure we provide the services our customers use most and reconfiguring our branch network to focus on where demand is greatest," the bank spokesman said."This has been a difficult decision and we apologise for the inconvenience we know this will cause some of our customers."The latest closures will affect 22 staff, with up to 18 people facing redundancy.The Finance Sector Union lashed out the bank's senior management for continuing to cull its bricks and mortar network."We know customers, especially the elderly, need to go to bank branches to transact business," said Victorian secretary, Darren Martin."But all the banks, including ANZ, have embarked on a campaign to push customers onto internet banking because they can then get rid of branches and keep their profit levels up."This is