UPDATE 6.50pm
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NAB officials have said that the threat has now been deemed to be a hoax and branches will open again on Thursday morning.
"Over the course of today we have been working with authorities to assess the physical threat made against NAB branches, which resulted in the evacuation of our branches, business banking centres, as well as commercial sites where branches and business banking centres are co-located." NAB said in a statement.
"The latest advice from state and federal police is that the threat is not credible and has been deemed a hoax. As a result, we are pleased to advise that it is now safe to return to all NAB locations from tomorrow morning."
"We understand that this caused inconvenience to our customers and colleagues, however their safety and security is our absolute priority and that is why we took the action we did. We did so with the information that we had at the time," the company said.
3.35pm
NAB branches have been closed and evacuated as part of national response to a security threat this afternoon.
In a statement the company said it was due to a "physical security threat".
"Unfortunately we have had to close our branches temporarily due to a physical security threat," a NAB statement said.
"This includes commercial offices where they are co-located with branches. Where our ATMs are located onsite at a branch we also took them offline.
"As always the safety and security of our customers and colleagues is our priority.
"We are progressively sweeping our branches, business banking centres and commercial offices to ensure they are safe to return. As they are deemed safe, we will advise our colleagues located in each of these they can return and locations will be progressively reopened to customers.
"We are working closely with police and will continue to provide updates when we can," the company said.
Digital banking services including internet and mobile banking, as well as telephone banking, remain available to customers as normal, the company said in its statement.
There are NAB branches at Merimbula and Bega.
