HUME Building Society’s announcement that it intends to become a bank has caused little stir among its 57,000 customers so far.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The institution announced this week it intended to apply for bank status.
If accepted, it will become just the third regional Australian organisation with bank in its title.
Chief executive officer Andrew Saxby said there had not been as much reaction as anticipated, so far.
“We had thought the phones would be ringing,” he said.
“That they’re not is a good thing to me — all we’ll be changing is the name, and I think a lot of customers already think of us as a bank.”
Under Australian Prudential Regulation Authority guidelines, a building society or credit union can apply to be a bank upon holding more than $50 million of core capital — Hume met that on June 30 with $54.89 million.
The decision will now go to members at the annual meeting on October 17, and needs 75 per cent of attendees to approve before the application is made to APRA.
Mr Saxby said if all went as planned, Hume would become Hume Bank on July 1, 2014.
“We’ve deliberately given ourselves a long time, in order to fully prepare for a changeover,” he said.
“Our hope is that any new documents, cards, et cetera from July 1 will have the new header on them.”
Backing the move, chairman Stuart Gilchrist said customers would see no difference in how the institution ran or its services, as it already offered everything a bank did.
Changing to a bank would allow new customers to easily and quickly identify what services they could expect.
It would recognise the growth and strength of the region.
