Atlin, British Columbia

People living in Atlin, B.C., will lose their only banking service by year's end, as the Bank of Montreal has notified customers it intends to stop providing service in the northern British Columbia community.

For more than 20 years, BMO has provided some financial services in Atlin through the B.C. government agent in the remote northwestern community, which has a population of about 400.

But the bank has recently taken out newspaper ads in neighbouring Yukon, advising Atlin-area customers to make new banking arrangements before the service is discontinued by December.

"We have a couple of hundred clients that have opened up banking services with us out of the Atlin outlet, if you will. However, as we are finding out, many of them actually have relocated to other parts of Canada," BMO area manager Andy Clough told CBC News in an interview.

"Atlin's been a mining community throughout the years, and with the reduction of the mining services, many of the people who were living there and were clients of ours are now actually working in other parts of Canada or North America."

When asked if the bank would reconsider its decision, Clough said it's "no longer viable for us, as a business entity, to be offering the services there."

Clough is recommending affected clients rely on BMO's internet or telephone banking systems for tasks such as paying bills.

"Paying bills, for example, can be done either automatically, they can be done via telephone banking, and also can be done over the computer," he said.

In its newspaper ads, BMO says Atlin residents can call the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada to request a meeting if they object to the closure.

Sylviane Desparois, a spokeswoman for the federal agency, told CBC News that while residents can force a meeting with bank officials, it's not clear if the agency can make the bank continue providing service.