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
The above quote is from the October 1998 edition of Cuscal’s Directions magazine. In it, Margaret Young is profiled on her retirement after 33 years with Bankstown City Credit Union. Margaret was also interviewed by Richard Raxworthy in 1990 for our oral history program where she related her early days and how she came to work for the credit union.
“I was born in Bankstown on the 25th of July 1936 … and I've lived in Bankstown all my life”, said Margaret.
“I went to Bankstown Primary and then Bankstown Girls High School. I started work at Bankstown Council as it was in those days, it's now Bankstown City Council. And I started there when I was 14 and a half. I left school at that time. I had my Intermediate Certificate. I started as a junior in the office then went on to training on national accounting machines”, said Margaret.
In the interview Margaret relates how she left the Council when she had a child but was asked to come back to work on a part-time basis as an employee of the council’s new credit union. Here is Margaret on her early days with the credit union:
When I first started it was a small office behind the switchboard. And we started there on cheques. I used to have to get three signatures. So consequently, it was up the stairs to the engineers on the level of the account section and then downstairs to somewhere else to get another signature. I got plenty of exercise. And everything had to be cheques, no cash.
Another story from the early days Margaret recounts is when she came to the aid of a man in dire debt trouble. “One of our biggest helps was a fellow who was going to lose his home. And it was a big thing. He needed 500 pounds, we were in pounds at that time, and he was going to lose his home and we managed to save it for him. And that was great”, said Margaret.
By the time of her retirement, Margaret had become Members Services Manager for Bankstown City Credit Union. She told Richard Raxworthy that the proudest moment of her career was her work on the Invest Package for retirees.
Marget said Invest was, “to help promote retirement packages for members that are going to retire and to steer them on to our investment advisors when it's necessary … It's something that the credit union movement really needed, especially with the aging population. And with our members we had nothing to offer them and now we do have advanced packages”.
Bankstown City Credit Union is now a division of Unity Bank.
The above information was sourced from records in the Australian Mutuals History collection.
