CUA half-year financial performance highlights innovation focus

CUA half-year financial performance highlights innovation focus
Staff reporterDecember 7, 2020

Australia’s largest credit union, CUA, will continue to grow its investment in innovation to improve member experience and choice of digital channels, after today announcing a solid first-half financial result.

CUA Group posted a consolidated Cash Profit of $35.31 million for 1H-FY18, and Net Profit after Tax (NPAT) of $28.76 million.

CUA chief executive officer Rob Goudswaard said the result reflected that CUA was delivering on its ‘anytime, anywhere’ digital strategy through an increased investment in innovation and digital activation during the six-month period.

While profit was down slightly on the prior first half, this was largely due to upfront costs in joining international banking collaboration, Pivotus Ventures, on 1 July 2017 and a pilot of the first initiative to come out of the Silicon Valley based innovation studios.

As a member-owned organisation, CUA’s profits are reinvested into our business and we are always looking for opportunities to invest that into initiatives and projects which benefit members and support them through different stages of their lives,” he said.

Focus on innovation

Goudswaard said the significant investment CUA had made in innovation by joining global banking innovation collaboration Pivotus Ventures has supplemented CUA’s continued involvement with the Australian fintech and start-up communities.

“The Pivotus collaboration has allowed us to tap into international banking expertise. We’ve already rolled out a pilot of the first innovation, the iM CUA instant messaging app, much faster than we would have been able to develop this kind of innovation on our own,he said.

While it’s early days, CUA is already seeing positive outcomes on the pilot, with close to 2,000 registered users on the iM CUA app who are benefitting from the convenience of having their own personal banking adviser. The success of the app has been reflected in positive Net Promoter Scores.

“We’re also working closely with Australian-based fintechs, which has seen us announce new collaborations in the past few months with online mortgage lending platform LoanDolphin and an artificial intelligence pilot with Flamingo AI and CUA Health. And we are working with domestic partners to leverage new technologies, like Australia Post’s new online identity verification service, Digital iDTM, which is assisting members to quickly open an account online without the need to visit a branch,” Mr Goudswaard said.

“In addition to what we’ve already delivered, CUA members will continue to benefit from other new innovation and digital offerings in the second half of FY18. That will include a new mobile banking app, the ability to register a PayID and make faster payments using the New Payments Platform following the rollout to CUA members this week, and the expanded rollout of iM CUA to members with both iPhones and Android devices.” 

 

 

 

 

 

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