From the May 14, 1990, issue Credit Union Times.
BRISBANE, Australia. –What Australian CUs lack in size, they make up for in technology.
American CUs could learn a lot from their brethren in the Land Down Under, according to the general manager at one of Australia's largest CUs.
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"We're ahead in automated areas, and our credit unions offer a lot more service," observed Alan Greig of Queensland Public Service Employees' Credit Union Ltd. "We went into ATMs in 1979. We're into travel, insurance, automatic bill paying, automatic credit and automatic loan assessment. I'm not just talking about our credit union but about the larger credit unions in the Australian movement."
When talking about Australian CUs, large is a very relative term.
"The biggest credit union here is 22 million Australian dollars," Greig reported. "The typical banks, –you've got me there—they're in the hundreds of billions. Credit unions are only 1.4 percent of the total financial market."
Queensland Public Service ECU at (A)$47 million is among the top 50 in the country said Greig. In fact, QPSECU became the first financial institution in Australia to offer in –house financial advice in 1982. Predictably, "Now everybody here is doing it."
Credit unions in the U.S. are less eager to jump on bandwagons, he remarked.
Greig is no stranger to the American CU movement. "I come up to the CUES conference every year just to see what's going on."
From his travels, Greig points out another difference between CUs in the two countries—awards criteria.
"In Australia, annual report awards are judged more on information content than design," Greig said. QPSECU's 1989 annual report won the Silver Award at the Australian Business 40th Annual Report Awards. By contrast, "(CUES) Golden Mirror is judged on marketing content."
Ironically, QPSECU won "Best Annual Report" in its asset size in the International Golden Mirror Awards last year.
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