We have restarted our Oral History Program with a recorded interview with long time servant of Qudos Bank, Gary Halliday. Our oral history collection is one of our most important assets (learn more here) and it was an apt way to revive it with a chat to Gary.
Gary has a most impressive mutuals CV. He worked for Qantas Credit Union/Qudos Bank at all levels from 1968-2004 and was a Director there from 2005-2021. He was appointed to the Advisory Committee for the NSW Minister for Credit Unions, was on the FINCOM Advisory Board and was a Foundation Director of the Association of Central Credit Unions, CreditLink, the Independent Association of Credit Unions and the National Credit Union Association.
We now hold Gary’s considered observations on file for future historians of Qudos Bank or Australian mutuals more broadly. Here is a bit of what Gary had to say …
“In 1975 I prefaced our loan policy by saying that we will probably loan money to someone that nobody else will. You’re not allowed to do that now. Everyone has to comply with minimum lending standards and I remember one time I was criticised in a FINCOM inspection for making a loan to a Qantas Storeman.
He worked in the stores area, his fridge packed up over Christmas, he was married to a Fijian lady, they had eight children and they had no fridge. I leant him $2000 to buy a fridge unsecured and he would not have passed any credit assessment.
But his wife used to walk in every fortnight and pay money off it because they knew there was no one else who would lend them the money on those terms and they appreciated it. But it was against all ‘good lending criteria’ …
But, we had no bad debts and we put that down to our close relationship with our members and we would lend them money if they had a valid cause.”
