Directors' Column

As the situation around COVID-19 continues to evolve, we are doing everything we can to ensure all banking needs are met. The safety and wellbeing of our customers and people remains our highest priority.

Culture and leadership

These unprecedented and challenging events have highlighted even further the importance of culture and leadership. You can expect us to continue operating as normally as possible, with our values underpinning everything we do. As we closely monitor the latest advice from both government and health authorities, we’re working under three foundation principles:

• Our People. Snow Star Credit Union’s most important consideration is determining and assuring the safety and wellbeing of our people - staff and their families, as well as the education and healthcare industries.
• Our Customers. Our response plans focus on continuity for you to make sure that your banking needs are met as outlined above.
• Our Community. We maintain our unwavering commitment to helping our community during these difficult times.

Our financial position

Despite the challenging circumstances that we all find ourselves in, the underlying responsibilities of your Board remain the same, which includes protecting your bank balances by ensuring our balance sheet is sound and supports initiatives and services you rely upon. At an industry level, customer owned banks have over four million customers and manage over $100B in assets.

As a customer owned bank, our financial position is secure. We are covered by the Australian Government’s guarantee scheme, the Financial Claims Scheme. We are also an Authorised Deposit-taking Institution (ADI) regulated by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA). This guarantee applies to our customers’ deposits of up to $250,000 per account-holder.

Thank you for your continued support and understanding. Please refer to our website bankfirst.com.au for the latest information.

Michael Monester