Australia’s customer owned banking sector has celebrated a historic milestone in reaching $100 billion in total assets, latest APRA statistics show.
Australia’s customer owned banking sector has celebrated a historic milestone in reaching $100 billion in total assets. The latest quarterly figures from APRA showed that a surge in home loan growth helped lift the sector to $101 billion in total assets.
“We’ve seen through the APRA data that more and more Australian families are taking out a loan with us and achieving their dream of buying a home,” COBA CEO Mark Degotardi said.
“Reaching $100 billion in assets further underlines that the customer owned model, with its 4 million customers, is the proven alternative to the listed model in retail banking.
“Mutual banks, credit unions and building societies are delivering great service, highly competitive pricing and an unmatched customer focus.”
How many customer-owned institutions are there?
According to the Customer Owned Banking Association (COBA), Australia currently has the following customer owned banking institutions:
61 credit unions
18 mutual banks
4 building societies
2 other mutual ADIs
The Australian customer owned banking sector serves more than 4 million customers, with population penetration (customers as a proportion of the total population) highest in NSW (27%) and South Australia (26%).
“Customers are our owners and number one focus and unlike our listed competitors we don’t have the tension of trying to maximise returns to a separate group of shareholders,” said Mr Degotardi.
Term Deposit interest rates
Looking at 6 month term deposits, with an investment amount of $25,000, the majority of highest advertised interest rates on Canstar’s database at time of writing are with customer-owned institutions, as follows:
Institutions
Customer Owned?
Advertised rate
ME
Yes
3.00%
Arab Bank
No
2.95%
AMP
No
2.95%
QBank
Yes
2.85%
Rural Bank
Yes
2.85%
Firstmac
Non-bank
2.85%
Qudos Bank
Yes
2.80%
ECU
Yes
2.80%
QT Mutual Bank
Yes
2.75%
Source: Canstar. Based on products listed on Canstar database. Interest rates effective 29/8/16
Justine is a former Editor-in-Chief and media commentator at Canstar. She holds multiple degrees from Deakin University in commerce, accounting, law and marketing