Unity Bank restructures IT leadership after completing merger

Unity Bank has restructured its IT leadership after completing a merger with G&C Mutual Bank, scrapping its chief information officer role.

The bank confirmed to iTnews that CIO responsibilities now fall within the remit of its chief operating officer Akhilesh Mehta’s office.

A new head of IT operations and security has been hired reporting to Mehta, which the spokesperson did not name, and iTnews could not locate.

“Our COO, Akhilesh Mehta has carriage of IT at [executive] level, and we have hired a head of IT and security that reports to the COO,” a spokesperson for the bank said.

The bank’s most recent CIO, Fergus Stevens, left in March after just over a year in the role.

Stevens' time there coincided with Unity’s merger with G&C Mutual Bank, including the technical integration.

"As CIO, I led the technology integration of two banks post-merger, unifying systems, vendors and infrastructure across the combined organisation with a nine-person internal team and five managed service partners," Stevens wrote in a LinkedIn post.

“We hit full APRA CPS 230 compliance ahead of the regulatory deadline and kept 60,000 members in uninterrupted service throughout."

Unity’s spokesperson told iTnews that the bank’s technology priorities remained unchanged under the new IT leadership structure, “namely providing an effective digital banking experience for our members, and robust cyber security for the protection of their funds.”

Over the past 12 months the bank has taken both brands and combined them with a third that it had operated in regional areas since 2010, Reliance Bank, consolidating them under the single Unity Bank brand.

Prior to their merger, G&C Mutual Bank and Unity Bank each formed over decades from the gradual merger and consolidations of smaller regional sector-aligned workers’ credit unions.

Unity Bank originally started as the Waterside Workers of Australia Credit Union in 1970 before becoming the Maritime, Mining & Power Credit Union in 2008 and merging with Australian Country Credit Union in 2010 which then traded as Reliance Member Banking.

G&C Mutual Bank’s history dates back further to 1959, starting as the Public Works Dept Staff Co-operative before taking its current name in 2014.