While Media Credit Union traded for a mere decade, its roots go back to 1969 and the groundwork prepared by it and its predecessors eventually paved the way for Bank Australia.
Media CU was formed in 1981 by the amalgamation of David Syme Employees Credit Co-operative and Southdown Employees Credit Co-operative. David Syme took over The Age newspaper from his brother in 1860 and subsequently guided the paper to great success. Southdown Press was a longstanding publisher of magazines, so the name Media Credit Union was an obvious choice. This choice of name also paved the way to broadening the bond to include employees of other media companies in Victoria including, Progress Press, Truth newspapers, Datamail and 3XY radio.
In June 1986, the Victorian Credit Co-operative Association (VCCA) magazine, The Common Bond, profiled Media CU at what was a time of immense change for the organisation. After 5 years of operation as Media CU, the credit union felt the pressure to expand which included moving the head office to a South Melbourne location.
South Melbourne was chosen as the location for the new head office as their records revealed that 32% of the membership resided in the area. An unsurprising statistic with South Melbourne being a hub for the media industry. With the move came an application for a bond to service any resident of the South Melbourne community along with its existing industrial bond.
“South Melbourne is the hub of the media industry in Victoria. However we had to make facilities available immediately because of the applications by other credit unions. The community bond was, in a sense, thrust upon us”, said Media CU General Manager, Rob Davy.
A large PR drive was undertaken in order to encourage the South Melbourne community to make the switch to Media Credit Union. There was a public launch of the new HQ in May 1986 involving the Mayors of South Melbourne and Port Melbourne. Local sporting bodies, churches and small businesses were approached, a full page ad was taken out in a local newspaper and letter drops were made to residents printed in English and Greek. Despite all this, some long term members had reservations about the new community bond ….
In 1991, Media Credit Union transferred engagements to Outlook Credit Union Co-operative.
