Apple of My Island State

Island State Credit Union was a big name in Tasmania until it merged with Connect Credit Union in 2007. The merged business launched as MyState Financial and two years later it demutualised.

In its 37-year history Island State merged with 11 credit unions but it started with a group of postal technicians beginning as Postech Credit Union Co-operative Society in 1970.

Postal technicians is a misleading job title. These “postal technicians” maintained the telephone exchanges of Tasmania. The written history of Island State titled, Putting People First: Island State Credit Union 1970-2000, records that the postal technicians who agreed to form a credit union in Hobart knew, “nothing, zilch about either credit unions or financial matters more generally”.

They did know that they had trouble getting loans. Putting People First details the difficulty first Postech CU Chairman, Jim Forbes, had getting a loan:

“It was almost as if you had to prove you didn’t need the money before the bank would lend it to you … Because you were borrowing money meant there was something wrong with you anyway, and if there was something wrong with you, you were a bad credit risk, and you were treated as such”, said Jim.

By the time the name was changed to Island State Credit Union in 1980, it was an amalgamation of 74 different organisations including government departments, charities, trade unions, four hospitals, four newspapers and more. The seed organisation, Telecom, was just one of these so it made sense to have a change of name.

A lot of thought went into the name change but many Postech stalwarts were against it. When the name “Island State” was eventually chosen it was a popular one. Interestingly, “Island State” was not a widely used term for Tasmania at the time.

In the year following the name change, Island State completed one of its biggest mergers. This was the absorbing of Mountsea Credit Union which began at the Cadbury chocolate factory.

Other significant mergers took place on the turn of the millennium. In July of 2000, Island State merged with Polish Credit Union which had been serving the Tasmanian Polish community since 1966.

Amazingly Polish Credit Union operated for over 35 years without any paid staff. An article in Tasmanian Credit Union News in 1993 declared that “the Polish Community Credit Union operates without any staff; its Board of Directors personally carry out all the functions as well as the duties normally associated with a Board”.

In November of 2000, Island State merged with CPS Credit Union (TAS) in their last big change before becoming MyState Financial in 2007. CPS stood for Commonwealth Public Service and at the time of merging they had over 5000 members, no small fry in Tasmania.