Is a customer-owned bank the right place for your money?

Sometime in the 1840s, the first mutual financial institutions – building societies – are thought to have emerged in Australia. Since then, the nation’s relationship with customer-owned banking has remained strong. In the 2022-23 financial year, the “mutuals” (which include mutual banks, building societies and credit unions) increased their total assets by 2.5%, to an all-time high of $163.1bn.Dr Luisa Unda is an assistant professor at Mannheim University and an expert in Australia’s tradition of customer-owned banking. She explains why the mutuals are increasingly strong alternatives to mainstream banks.How are customer-owned banks different to for-profit banks?More than 5 million Australians are members of mutual banks. Mutuals are structured differently to mainstream options – instead of having investors or shareholders, they’re made up of people and businesses, who become members when they open an eligible product or service, and take an equal stake.“The…