The rate of unionisation across the Australian financial services sector fell to a new low last year as banks shuttered hundreds of branches and accelerated rollouts of digital platforms. Among the consequences of the rapid reconfiguration of bank distribution is that it transforms the workforces of large and small deposit takers and delivers an existential threat to the Finance Sector Union. The union is under pressure to broaden the types of finance workers willing to join its ranks as its traditional subscription base – comprised mostly of branch and back office staff – are automated out of the industry. According to disclosures in the union’s 2023 annual report that was filed with the Registered Organisations Commission this week, the national tally of FSU members reduced by 1930 or 8.1 per cent to 21,737. While the rate of decline is a slight improvement on 2022 when the union suffered a net loss of 2186 members, the collapse in subscriptions remains at a historically high level. The profound impact on the union of technology transformations occurring throughout the industry is underlined, in part, by the fact that it managed to attract more than 2300 new members in 2023. This means that its longstanding subscription base is eroding in far greater numbers in the face of the eruptive effects of digitalisation and an ageing population. The union’s prospects for survival in the next five years will partly hang on its ability to at least keep adding more than 2000 members a year and on hopes that political influence might force the banks to slow the rate of branch closures. FSU national secretary Julia Angrisano estimates that around 3000 full time roles were made redundant in Australia over the last 12 months as banks offshored back end processes and shut branches. For several years the union appears to have been preparing itself internally for the banking sector’s shift to digital distribution. As the membership has plunged at an accelerated rate since the pandemic in 2020, the FSU has been aggressively restructuring its own labour force and balance sheet to adapt to the change. That has involved a sharp contraction in the union’s paid workforce and careful management of its asset base. Since 2017 the FSU’s full time equivalent staff has almost halved from 151 to 81. One of the counter-intuitive features of the continuing membership slide is that it appears not to have triggered much in the way of financial stress for the union. Since the pandemic, the FSU’s financial position has actually been improving, despite consistent decline in its main source of revenue – member subscriptions. In the 12 months to the end of June, the union eked an operating surplus of A$1.04 million, even though subscription income fell more than $500,000 to under $13 million. The FSU has a portfolio property and investment assets valued at almost $70 million and modest liabilities of $4.3 million. The portfolio delivered increased returns in 2023 and helped to negate the bottom line impact of lower subscription revenue and slightly higher operating expenses.