Teachers to take its new UniBank division national

Teachers Mutual Bank will use its new UniBank division to build share in the university sector - a part of the education market where it has been underweight.

Last week Teachers and Western Australian credit union Unicredit completed a merger that was announced in January. The merged entity has 173,000 members and A$5.2 billion of assets.

Unicredit brought about 7500 members and $200 million of assets to the merger.

Unicredit will retain a separate brand, UniBank, which will be rolled out nationally.

Teachers Mutual Bank chief executive Steve James said the bank has a large number of members working in universities but its traditional areas of strength have been primary and secondary schools.

The bulk of UniBank's members are in universities. James said Teachers hoped to expand its market footprint by retaining the brand and marketing it has nationally.

Unicredit accepted students as members, as well as teachers, and UniBank will maintain that approach.

UniBank head Ross Moulton said the strategy and timing of the expansion were still being worked on.