Australia’s biggest customer-owned bank has undergone a full rebrand, with Credit Union Australia (CUA) becoming Great Southern Bank.
The move comes on the 75th anniversary of the formation of CUA, and according to their CEO Paul Lewis, the renaming was a product of months of research and workshopping new ideas.
Great Southern Bank was settled upon as a new name, but will retain the easily-identifiable teal colour logo that is associated with the old CUA, and the bank will still offer the same services as ever.
“The reason for the rebrand, if you boil it all down, was to remove a friction point,” said Lewis. “We’ve been around for 75 years as CUA, but increasingly, more and more Australians don’t know what a credit union is and having credit union in your name becomes a friction point. 50% of Australians don’t know what a credit union is and that’s about 72% for those under 30.”
“Firstly, it’s a removal of that friction point, because we’re essentially a bank, we act like a bank and we’re changing our name to bank. Secondly, it’s a refresh: it’s a pretty rare chance for us to re-present our credentials to the market.”
Lewis explained that Great Southern Bank will remain customer-owned, and remain committed to the same goals that CUA had. The rebranding is accompanied by several key announcements, including a new product option for borrowers.
“We’re combining the rebrand with a number of initiatives, such as going live on Phase 2 with our home loan platform. We went live with brokers last year on our cloud-based platform and we’ve just gone live with Phase 2 of that which is for our organic channel and self-service.
“Also, there’s the launch of some new complementary products, so simplifying our existing mortgage product set and introducing a couple of other bits and pieces to help Australians save for their first homes.”
