mecu has become the first Australian credit union to receive a separate credit rating from  Standard & Poor's, which yesterday advised that it allocated a long-term credit rating of  BBB and a short-term rating of A2 to the Melbourne- based entity that has assets of $1.45 billion.Phylip Doughty, CEO of mecu, said they began the ratings process in the latter quarter of 2007, with the process from application to rating, "happening very quickly"."It arose as part of our strategic plan, which revolves around our commitment to sustainability, which put us in contact with a lot of not-for-profits we want to do business with, and have done business with in the past, particularly lending."At the same time we were keen to look at them investing with us, we discovered that their rules on investment basically meant that unless the institution with whom they were going to invest had a rating, and at least an investment grade rating from Standard & Poor's or Moody's, they wouldn't invest with you."Doughty said that although S&P had not rated an Australian credit union before, they understood the industry due to rating some of the bigger national building societies."We are very happy with the investment grade rating. However, if you were to look at our balance sheet you would see that's its very strong, and we might have been happier with a slightly higher long-term rating."Doughty said the credit union now has some ideas on how to best utilise its new-found status."Our ideas are that relationships that we have within a particular sector that have mainly revolved around lending to that sector, we want to develop in that sector so that they can invest with us as well."It's not wholesale, these organisations have surplus cash that they need to keep marshalled for whatever reasons they have moving forward, and we would like to access some of that money."There is a quite considerate pool held by the not-for-profit sector in Australia. We would like to access that (the funds) so that we can offer a comprehensive finance package to those organisations."On putting some of these new plans into effect, Doughty said the credit union would move slowly as there is no rush to obtain new funds, as the organisation already runs above 25 per cent liquidity.On residential lending, Doughty adds that they are seeing a move of members refinancing with them away from some of the big securitisers, once their mortgage has elapsed long enough not to pay large exit fees."We had our largest ever monthly loan funding in December, and we have had the three largest loan fundings in our fifty-year history during the current financial year."Nearly all our growth has been in residential, and we are seeing strong credit growth as well."The deposit book has growth of six per cent in the first six months of the financial year, with the deposit book remaining larger than the lending book."We have just gone through $1.45 billion in assets, so we have grown $100 million in the