MELBOURNE, Australia–CUA, Australia’s largest credit union, said it is planning to pursue more partnerships and is looking at allowing more mutuals to use its hi-tech platform.
But in an interview with The Australian, CEO Rob Goudswaard played down the prospect of further mergers in the sector.
Over the past year there have been 11 mergers among credit unions in Australia, reducing to 80 the number of CUs in the country. Goudswaard told the publication he expects that more than 50 will remain independent for at least another 10 years.
Among the partnerships in which CUA has entered is a joint venture with the Adelaide-based People’s Choice Credit Union to establish a new procurement and accounts payable services company to benefit their combined 790,000 members.
“There are many ways you can do other things like that around partnerships if the social issues are such that you can’t move to mergers,’’ he told the Australian.
CUA, which is nation’s 12th largest home loan lender, is also working with PricewaterhouseCoopers on two options to better leverage its investments in technology across the sector, according to Goudswaard.
Among the areas it is investigating is the establishment of an integrated cloud environment that would provide other mutuals with online access to CUA’s core banking platform.
“If you have social issues that preclude you merging, you can keep the shopfronts but have a joint kitchen for the back office,’’ Goudswaard told the Australian.
He also said CUA was working with PwC on the possibility of running an “aggregated balance sheet’’ whereby mutuals would pool their balance sheets to gain a better credit rating and raise wholesale funds more consistently.