St.George Bank - History

History

In 1848, both the State Bank of South Australia and the Savings Bank of South Australia opened for business in rural South Australia. The two banks would merge in 1984 and trade as the State Bank of South Australia. The St.George Co-operative Building Society Ltd. was formed on 6 May 1937 in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville, with George Cross as the first Chairman of the Board. One month later in June, the Cronulla & District Co-operative Building Society was formed.

The NSW Permanent Building and Investment Societies were also launched in 1937. The society became a bank in 1985 under the name Advance Bank. In 1995 it acquired the State Bank of South Australia, adopting the Bank of South Australia as the name for the merged entity, trading as BankSA. It was in turn taken over in 1997 by St.George Bank.

With the post-war housing boom, the St.George and Cronulla societies expanded rapidly, with 38 societies established by 1955. In 1955, the Society became a Permanent Building Society, which enable its loans to be larger and terms shorter. In 1961 the first Sydney branch opened in Miranda, followed by the first Sydney city branch in August 1963. The expansion of the branch network continued through the 1960s. The Society also operated 41 agencies.

In 1972 St.George was the first building society to 'go on-line' with the installation of an IBM mainframe computer connected to 30 terminals. Shortly after, the black light signature system for passbooks was introduced, a system which had been adopted by the banks in the late 1960s. This system enabled withdrawals to be made from passbooks at a branch other than the one where an account was opened, unless prior arrangements were made to transfer the signature card to the other branch.

The headquarters of the building society was originally located in Ormonde Parade, Hurstville. In the 1990s, its headquarters was moved to Montgomery Street, Kogarah.

On 1 November 2006, St.George Bank posted a net profit of A$1bn for 2005/06, which was a 17.9% increase on the previous year, and a record profit for the bank. At the time of its acquisition by Westpac Banking Corporation in 2008, St.George Bank Limited (as it was then known) was the fifth largest bank operating in Australia.