Move your money . . .

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Move your money . . .

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

We’ve heard much criticism recently of the billions of dollars of profit made by the Australian-owned banks operating here. We shouldn’t just have overseas-owned banks in our sights, though.

Kiwibank’s latest profit figures were recently released and they boast a $79m profit, made from New Zealanders of course, more than tripling their profit from the previous year.

I sometimes think it’s a well-kept secret that there are New Zealand-owned financial institutions where maximising the return to shareholders is not the overriding objective, where becoming a customer means you become an owner and as a result you get better service and lower fees.

Locally-owned co-operative and mutual financial institutions were out of fashion a few years ago, but they’re firmly back in favour since they came through the global financial crisis virtually unscathed. And it’s their customer-first philosophy which means that co-operative and mutually-owned banks are predicted to grow market share in New Zealand.

Lively campaigns can be found in the UK and USA, both called Move Your Money, which call on people to divest in the big banks and move to local financial institutions.

It’s time we had a similar campaign to persuade New Zealanders to move to local financial institutions such as the member-owned Co-operative Bank and credit unions, as well as Taranaki’s TSB and the building societies.

Such a campaign would be very popular and timely. Who’s going to start one?

RAMSEY MARGOLIS New Zealand Co-operatives Association executive director

Comments

John Allen

07:22 p.m. Tuesday, Aug 28, 2012

Given New Zealanders have collectivly borrowed roughly twice what they have saved, how would we as a country fund our growth under your model?
These institutions have a place, without question, but they do not have the means to cost-effectivly attract the offshore funding required. Great in theory but not realistic, sorry.

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