Graham Olrich, chair, Regional Australia Bank
Regional Australia Bank and Teachers Mutual Bank were unusually didactic in their annual reports this week.
Both solicit merger opportunities. Well, everyone is.
It is the 20 smallest credit unions that APRA and the RBA want cleaned up, quick smart. This will probably happen over the next year or so.
There are obvious ADI casualties among the ranks of mutual banks and credit unions, saved only by running a clean, ethical, simple and low cost banking operation – and being always across credit and funding risks.
Less obvious but also happening are mergers among the top 10 mutual banks, and maybe even among the top five.
It’s time more serious talks morphed into mergers, at both ends of the customer owned banking spectrum.