Old fashioned personal service is largely responsible for the success of Shell Employees’ Credit Union Ltd. Set along hard-hats and oil tankers at the location of Clyde Refinery in Rosehill, this small credit union prides itself on knowing its members like a family within a casual and caring environment, without losing its professionalism. So beg...

Why I've always had such a great feeling for the credit union is mainly because initially when we were first married and looking for a home loan, the bank wouldn't even look at my earnings, which at that stage, I was earning as much as my husband at the county council, and I'd had 10 years local government experience. I really felt that was discrim...

Margaret Young was the credit union’s very first employee when she started with Bankstown City Credit Union in April 1966 on a part-time basis. From this time, she has witnessed the credit union change its bond from industrial to community, expand its member facilities and adopt new technologies – Alex Genovese – Bankstown City Credit Union CEO Th...

In early May it was announced that Teachers Mutual Bank CEO Steve James would be retiring in September after 44 years at Teachers Mutual Bank, 18 of which were as CEO. To celebrate his career and add his knowledge to our database we interviewed him last week as part of our ongoing oral history program. Steve grew up in Sydney’s Inner West which wa...

Pauline Powell’s success in mutuals showed that a background in finance hasn’t always been necessary to make it to the top in the industry.  Pauline was initially employed as Personnel Manager of a credit union in 1987 before making it to General Manager in the 1990s. In a profile on her in the June 1996 edition of Australian Credit Unions Magazin...

Here is the latest edition of the Archives Newsletter.........

CUFA’s Development Education Program 1991–2013  Greg Patmore and Mark Westcott from the Sydney University Co-operatives Research Group (see here) have published a new paper drawn from their research into CUFA, some of which was conducted with us in 2020/2021. The initial research went into their book CUFA 50 Years. The article is titled “CUFA’s D...

We recently conducted an oral history interview with Clive Skarott. Clive’s most impressive CV includes being a co-founder of Electricity Credit Union (ECU) in 1973. Clive was involved with ECU from the beginning as Company Secretary and was CEO for 10 years. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his community service, including h...

Noeline Ellison was a trailblazing CEO of Media and Publishing Credit Union. She began as a part time Accounting Machine Operator in 1967 and became CEO in 1974. An extraordinary rise that would be impossible today. She was still with the credit union in the late 1990s. Media and Publishing Credit Union transferred engagements to Sydney Credit Unio...