Chair’s Report
I am pleased to report that your Bank has continued to perform strongly over the year, adding further to the range, relevance and value of services available to Members and their families. Throughout we have remained firm in our commitment to Members and to the Values we uphold, notwithstanding the often difficult operating backdrop. The past 12 months have yet again proved challenging for many Australians. Further lockdowns and health effects from the Covid virus and the general shortage of skilled workers impacted everyone. Pleasingly, society has learned to live with Covid and whilst there have been sporadic impacts on our operations, primarily through staff absences, we have largely been able to continue to provide uninterrupted services to members. Our Covid relief package was yet again available to any member who required assistance, however there were fewer requests than in previous years as the economic impacts were not as far reaching over the last 12 months. Unfortunately, natural disasters occur frequently in Australia and Unity Bank has always assisted in helping people and communities in their time of need. This year we formalised our assistance with our Community Support package which can help members with loan relief, emergency funds and tailored solutions to help them get back on their feet as quickly as possible. There were further improvements to our products and services during the year as we upgraded our banking app with enhanced functionality, better security and an overall richer user experience. We also invested in advanced fraud detection systems and additional fraud management staff so that we can provide members with better
protection from the ever-increasing levels of sophisticated fraud that is confronting the community. We all know the big challenges facing young people, single parent families and others who are trying to break into the home ownership market. This year Unity Bank designed and released a special package for first home buyers to help contain the cost and bridge the deposit gap. Working with the National Housing Finance Investment Corporation, we were also pleased to have been selected as one of only 5 lenders added to the authorised lending panel for the Federal Government’s First Home Guarantee and Family Home Guarantee (for single parent families) schemes. Under these Schemes, eligible members can purchase homes starting with as little as 2% deposit for eligible single parent families and 5% for eligible first home buyers without the need to pay for the usual mortgage insurance, which saves members tens of thousands of dollars. In combination, these initiatives are opening the opportunity of more affordable home ownership to more members. Combined with our new, simpler and more competitive range of home loan products and our unwavering focus on our members, we are now able to offer an even more compelling banking alternative to our competitors. This has translated into a record year in 2021/22 with our loans exceeding $1,109m up 7.5%. We assisted nearly 2,000 members with their loans and approved a record $357m in new funds. Thank you to all those members who gave us the opportunity to assist with their aspirations and dreams. Shortly we will be rolling out a new digital lending platform which will provide members with a better member experience, quicker
2 | Unity Bank Annual Report 2022
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