Councillor Murray King will put a motion to next Monday's council meeting calling for 10 per cent of the city's cash deposits to be held in smaller institutions such as WAW Credit Union, Hume Bank and Bendigo Bank.

He said the wrongdoing of the majors, seen at the recent Royal Commission, and their branch cuts, including Lavington's ANZ earlier this month, had motivated him.

"We need to send a clear message we don't accept bad behaviour, if you don't support us we won't support you," Cr King said.

"Closing branches does not show support for rural Australia and we shouldn't support them when they don't support us.

"Our financial institutions need to have a head office in Albury, not in Docklands Melbourne."

A report from the council's most recent agenda showed the city has more than $35 million lodged with Westpac, $25 million in NAB and $3.08 million in ANZ.

It has $5 million or less in each account it has with WAW, Hume and Bendigo. 

"Council has $150 million in cash deposits and if we are able to take 10 per cent from that and put it into smaller institutions, that is roughly around $15 million," Cr King said.

His motion follows Albury Council coming under pressure from the NSW Treasury Corporation (TCorp) to reduce exposure to smaller institutions and being threatened with reduced access to low interest loans if they fail to do so.

Cr King said his motion had been approved by council general manager Frank Zaknich, so on that basis he believes it will meet the guidelines of TCorp.

Former mayor Henk van de Ven endorsed the move, saying TCorp should be challenged over its stance.

"We should be thumbing our nose at the NSW Government and Treasury and saying this policy is incorrect," Cr van de Ven said. 

"A one-size-fits-all approach to this is not fair and it potentially disadvantages us and our community as far as cheaper loans go," Cr van de Ven said.

"My view is let's increase our investment with Hume and WAW to an appropriate level that we can do under the current rules and see if they take us on with access to cheaper loans and I'll fight to the death if they do that."

Cr King was hopeful the motion would succeed based on feedback of colleagues.

"I have spoken to WAW and they're certainly enthusiastic and said they're competitive with the big banks, so we're not going to be losing money," he said.

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Cr King added that the exact details of any new investment with the smaller organisations would be the responsibility of the council's chief financial officer and staff.

According to the council's latest investment listing, the city has 12 term deposits with NAB and 13 with Westpac.

Their yields go from 2.66 to 2.95 per cent.

The council has four term deposits with WAW and three with Hume and returns are 2.77 to 2.95 per cent.

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