Access to capital is a mutual objective

17 March 2017

The BCCM reports strong progress on advocating for key reforms to the Corporations Act to allow Australian mutuals to raise working capital to fund growth and development.

On 9 March 2017 the BCCM held a roundtable with Martin Stewart, Director of Banks, Building Societies and Credit Unions at the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority.

In the UK, where similar barriers have existed to those in Australia, new legislation has been enacted to enable mutuals to issue securities that fit with their ethos.

The focus on capital has followed on from the findings of the Senate Economics References Committee’s inquiry into cooperatives, mutuals and member-owned firms, which found that the options for co-operative and mutual enterprises to raise capital was curtailed by the regulatory and legislative environment.

The Senate Committee made several recommendations to facilitate greater parity between mutuals and investor-owned entities with respect to capital.

Mr Stewart is responsible for the prudential supervision of UK banks, building societies and credit unions at the Bank of England and oversaw the introduction, at a regulatory level, of legislation to permit new capital instruments to be issued by UK deposit taking mutuals.