NZACU to become Co-op Money NZ

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

5 June 2014

NZACU to become Co-op Money NZ

The industry association representing co-operatively owned credit unions and building societies, the New Zealand Association of Credit Unions (NZACU), has announced today that its board has given approval for NZACU to begin trading as ‘Co-op Money NZ’ from mid-July 2014.

Chief Executive, Henry Lynch, says the change to its trading name will help NZACU better represent the cooperative nature of its Members, which includes building societies as well as credit unions.

“We currently represent 22 cooperatively owned credit unions and mutual building societies throughout New Zealand, who help people sort out their money worries” Mr Lynch said. “Our Member credit unions and building societies serve their local communities by providing modern products and services everyone expects in today’s market, like debit cards, internet banking and mobile banking apps. Our Members are worth over $1.3 billion in assets, and serving over 205,000 members who are cooperative owners.”

Collectively the wider mutual banking sector, including mutual banks represent more than $600 million in revenue per year with a number of these organisations among Cooperative Business New Zealand’s “Top 40” cooperative and mutual businesses (by revenue) and NZACU is ranked at number 28.

Overall, cooperatives touch New Zealanders every day. It is estimated that 1 in 4 New Zealanders are part of cooperative organisations in everything from finance to food, and most New Zealanders have some form of interaction with a cooperative organisation.

“NZACU has itself been operating as a cooperative and representing the financial cooperative movement for over 50 years and we felt it was time our brand better reflected the modern, friendly nature of our Members as they are today” said Mr Lynch. “It’s time for us to have a more modern, friendly and people focused face to our organisation that describes who we are and what our members do”.

The new mark that will be adopted by NZACU is shown below.

“The word ‘Co-op’ represents our Members’ strong 150 year cooperative history and cooperative nature in working with their members and communities. The three ‘people’ at the top of the mark signify this: our Member organisations, their members and the community all cooperatively working together.

The word ‘Money’ represents what our members do day in day out - helping people sort out their money worries. The light blue is a colour research often associates with feelings of freedom – in this case freedom from money worries.”

The new name will also help NZACU to continue to support a number of nationwide financial literacy initiatives such as Money Week, says Mr Lynch.

“The Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income recently launched its theme for Money Week in October this year as ‘Get Your Money Fighting Fit This Money Week’. As in past years, we look forward to supporting Money Week again this year – this time under ‘Co-op Money NZ’ and with an exciting new brand identity!”

ENDS

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