Correction: AWA Credit Union

Impaired loans at AWA Credit Union increased to A$68,000 as at June 2010 from $24,000 as at 30 June 2009. We apologise for reporting non-impaired loans as impaired yesterday.

Graeme Scannell, general manager of AWA Credit Union, also noted in an email that AWA actually had assets under management of A$216 million at June 2010, comprising on-balance sheet assets of $86 million and off-balance sheet or securitised loans of $130 million.

Scannell also wrote that the change of name to AWA was in no way intended to align the credit union with Western Australia, "due to the diverse geographical member base that we service across three states.

"Rather, it aligns the credit union with Alcoa of Australia, given that the acronym AWA stands for Alcoa World Alumina/Aluminium within that environment."

He said AWA also has an office in Yennora, in Sydney, serving Alcoa employees.

Of the proposed merger with Geelong and District Credit Co-operative, he said that "although an MoU has been signed and board and management discussions are on-going the members of G&DCC would not consider any merger proposal until March 2011 at the earliest.

"In this regard, misleading information of this nature has the potential to compromise the merger process."