Myer considers a financial services division

Myer chief executive Bernie Brooks said the group would look at developing a financial services business when the current turnaround at the big retailer has been completed.

Brooks told Business Spectator in an interview published yesterday that financial services was an option for the group.

"But it's not an option in the turnaround phase. We've still got to get the stores right and we've still got to work hard at getting every other aspect right, so not in the short term.

"We have 200,000 people in the Myer Visa and Myer Storecard and it's not yielding us a profit yet, but it will do going forward.

"Financial services, more specifically Myer One (a loyalty program) is our financial services. As we get more people into Myer credit cards we could look at financial services going forward but at the moment, what we're investing in is we're taking the investment that we make in the credit card and investing it in Myer One.

"So ours is about investing to improve loyalty, rather than putting it on the bottom line. And that's one of the reasons our sales have been quite a lot stronger than we had thought, because we've invested quite a lot of money into Myer One and direct marketing to customers."