Letter - RACQ Bank

Michelle Bagnall, CEO of RACQ Bank, writes:

I'm writing to address some inaccuracies in the lead article by Ian Rogers published on Monday; 'RACQ chews up bank capital'.

Firstly, and most importantly, RACQ Bank is a mutual organisation. RACQ is also a mutual organisation - not a co-op.

The merger in 2016 between QTMB and RACQ was a legal merger of two mutual organisations - for the benefit of their members.

In 2017 RACQ Bank was launched. RACQ Bank was never a not-for-profit, nor have we ever demutualised. Our members and our mutual status are the most important things to us and we will protect them until the end.

And while we're clearing things up, your comment about our balance sheet "proving a bother" for RACQ is also untrue. While the bank may have experienced losses in the past financial year, these were expected and we're exactly where we want to be.

Naturally it costs money to launch a new bank. Our members had no mobile app and an outdated internet banking platform for starters, which we needed to replace.

However, being the mutual that we are, we didn't need to worry about short-term losses, we have the ability to look long-term for the benefit of our members and their communities and we know RACQ Bank has a very bright future providing many benefits to our 1.7 million members.