bankmecu’s continuing success in delivering responsible governance is demonstrated by responses from customers and staff in respective stakeholder engagement surveys.

The majority of customers (98%) believe bankmecu is particularly ethical, that bankmecu practices a socially responsible approach to banking (89%), and delivers benefits to customers, not just shareholders (88%). An outcome of responsible governance is that the majority of customers believe bankmecu to be a secure institution (78%).

The majority of staff believe that management acts ethically and with integrity and understand they themselves are required to act ethically and with integrity (87%). Further, staff believe both they themselves and bankmecu have an understanding of sustainability and are taking steps to be more sustainable (89%).

bankmecu has actively championed responsible industry behaviour within the mutual financial services sector and more broadly within the community. Its efforts have been acknowledged in a number of awards including – Australasian Reporting Awards (ARA) & Ethical Investor. Its responsible approach to business has seen it continue to deliver value to its customers and other stakeholders throughout and following the period of the global financial crisis.

bankmecu has no evidence of substantive non-compliance during the year with laws and regulatory codes of conduct governing its operation.

A minor breach of privacy occurred through an administrative error that resulted in the misdirection of a customer statement. Affected parties were advised with apology and options available to escalate if desired. Some occasional failures of staff to provide all required product information were also identified and rectified.

Card fraud continues to be the main source of corrupt practice that has impacted on Company activities. As for all card issuers, counterfeiting of cards impacted bankmecu’s operations as international criminal groups targeted certain merchants’ point-of-sale devices causing some losses for the company and considerable inconvenience to impacted cardholders. The introduction of cards with chips and the use of PINs to authorise transactions should reduce this activity. Online card fraud reduced in the second half of the financial year due to the introduction of Verified by Visa (VbV) - part of Visa International’s 7 point security plan.