Our Stories

To begin the new year, we’re taking you back 30 years for a video tour of the Australian Credit Union Archives, as it was then known, with Secretary/Manager Tom Kelly. In the video Tom takes viewers through the Archives’ premises at 59 Buckingham St, Surry Hills, where the office is still located though the expanded…

For our last story of 2025, we bring you a snippet of one of Richard Raxworthy’s 600 oral history interviews with credit union stalwarts – on video. For the sake of posterity, in 1992, the Australian Credit Union Historical Co-operative videoed part of Richard’s oral history interview with Tom Dyer at the Historical Co-operative office…

Kim Morris has just retired from her position as Chief Marketing Officer at Horizon Bank after an extraordinary 35 years. In fact, that’s just scratching the surface as Kim has been a member of Horizon Bank since she was a child as her parents were both members. The details of Kim’s life-long connection to mutuals…

Cuscal recorded these vox pops (“voice of the people”) around the turn of the millennium for presentation at seminars. The participants are asked “what is a credit union?” and “what is the difference between a credit union and a bank?”. The answers get more informed as the short video progresses with one great response by…

Credit Union SA began in October 2009 but it’s genesis in South Australian public service credit unions goes back over nearly 70 years. The public service has been fertile ground for credit union development in Australia over the course of the last 70 years. This has been aided by the fact that government agencies often…

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…

The Australian customer owned banking sector has had many internal debates and private meetings with politicians regarding taxation at state and federal level. Famously, Australian credit unions were granted an income tax exemption in 1974 only to have it revoked in 1995. A 2018 article in American Banker compared the history of taxation of credit…

We recently received a set of 12 minute books holding the executive and committee meeting minutes of the Australian Association of Permanent Building Societies (AAPBS) from 1964-2006. This period encapsulates the entire operating history of AAPBS.  In 2006, AAPBS formed ABACUS (Association for Building Societies and Credit Unions) with the Credit Union Industry Association. In…

Today we bring you Cuscal TV advertisements from 1995. Not only do they feature cute babies and doggos (marketing magic) but they also provide a history lesson. Many might recognise the ads which were ubiquitous on the nation’s small screens for a time in the 1990s. From one of our recently digitised VHS tapes, the…

Australian Mutuals Archives was privileged to be invited to an industry panel featuring Cresol Confederação from Brazil hosted by the BCCM (Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals) with COBA and the Australian Mutuals Foundation. The BCCM invited Marcio André Falcão, Executive Director, Cresol Confederação, to present to an audience of interested parties last week. Cresol…

We recently received a history of the first 40 years of Laboratories Credit Union (LCU). The 31-page document was prepared by a founding LCU Director named Trevor Clark in 1995. There is no background or scene setting, the author takes us straight to the foundation meeting held at the CSIRO Office at Sydney University on…

Photo: Sam Walters (far right), John Auld and others at the Special School Awards ca. 1978 Sam Walters was a large presence in the South Australian credit union movement and a pivotal figure in the history of People First Bank. Sam was born in South Australia in 1939 and left high school before he reached…