Briefs: Cairns joins Macquarie board, Co-op Money wins court fight, NZ bank lending solid 03 November 2014 4:42PM Banking Day staff Briefs, Former Lion Nathan chief executive Gordon Cairns has joined the Macquarie Group and Macquarie Bank boards. Cairns is currently chair of Origin Energy, Origin Foundation and Quick Service Restaurants. He has previously served as a director of Westpac. New Zealand's Co-operative Bank has failed in a bid to stop the New Zealand Association of Credit Unions rebranding itself "Co-op Money". Co-operative Bank, which itself rebranded from PSIS in 2011, applied for an interim injunction in the High Court to stop the name change by the NZACU, which represents co-operatively owned credit unions and building societies. The court ruled the 'Co-op' word was not exclusive to Co-operative Bank. "Courts are unsympathetic to parties seeking monopolies on descriptive words, particularly descriptive words widely used in the industry such as 'co-operative'," said Justice Asher. An appeal is possible, with Co-operative Bank saying it was reviewing the decision before deciding on its next step. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand reported a slight slowing of agriculture and housing lending by banks in September from August, but business lending rose marginally. Agriculture lending grew 2.9 per cent in September from a year ago, which was down from three per cent annual growth in the previous month and the slowest annual growth rate in six months. Housing lending also slowed to 4.8 per cent from five per cent, while commercial lending rose to 4.2 per cent from 3.9 per cent.