Steve James is stepping down from his role as chief executive of Teachers Mutual Bank, after 44 years at the credit union turned mutual bank – 18 of them as CEO. Teachers chair Maree O’Halloran sent a message to members yesterday, saying James will finish on September 29 and that the board has commissioned executive search firm Spencer Stuart to find a new CEO. Under James’ leadership Teachers grew through a series of mergers to become one of the country’s bigger mutual banks, with assets of A$10.4 billion and 230,344 members at June 30 last year. It merged with Unicredit in 2015, Fire Brigades Employees Credit Union in 2016 and Pulse Credit Union in 2021. It also launched new brands Health Professionals Bank and a digital-only brand Hiver. It has had a strong ethical focus, with B Corp certification, membership of the Global Alliance on Banking on Values and a high rating in the World’s Most Ethical Companies survey. The increase in size allowed Teachers to keep up with demands from customers for enhanced digital services and requirements for regulatory spend. But in recent times these developments did not always go to plan. In June last year, it launched a new mobile app that did not work properly for weeks after it went live. James wrote to customers a month after the launch apologising for “recent mobile banking app, internet banking and payment service outages”. In June 2021, it launched Hiver, a digital-only brand. It hoped the positioning of Hiver would attract a younger cohort than currently banks with its existing brands but in its first year of operation Hiver attracted just 1776 members. In her statement to members. O’Halloran said: “We have been reviewing the organisation’s strategy and agree that now is an appropriate time for Steve to hand over the reins to a new CEO to take the bank through its next phase of growth.”