BankSA

Bank SA, formerly known as The Bank of south Australia is a full service bank and private financial services provider offering: Personal banking, business banking and corporate banking. Initially established as a savings deposit bank on March 11, 1848, in south Australia (BankSA, 2021), it has a long-standing independent history serving mostly rural clients in the south Australian and Victorian fringes. Beginning as a sole employee company, John Hector the founding employee established the banks deposit book in the original offices in Gawler place Adelaide (Ibid). BankSA has undergone significant transformation, initially being acquired by St George Bank and later becoming a division of Westpac Banking corporation in 2008 by default in their merger.

the current legal structure of BankSA that is available via public record suggests that the BankSA is wholly owned entity of St George Bank which is another wholly owned entity of the Westpac Banking Corporation outfit. Westpac is a publicly listed ASX private company with an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL). Both BankSA and Westpac are a part of the Australian prudential banking deposit scheme, which is a government assurance of all deposit placed into the bank in the instance of a bank run or crisis (APRA, 2021). All of the Australian big four banks are implicated in the deposit scheme as a means to assure customers of the safety of their deposits and foster public trust in the Australian banking system (Eggleston, 2011)

The bank's first depositor was an Afghan shepherd, who deposited savings of 29 pounds into the then savings bank of South Australia with a further twelve clients aggregating 172 pounds, six shillings on the first trading day. The genesis of lending arm and the first constructed loan granted by the BankSA (then known as the savings bank of south Australia) was for the purchase housing and farming land to John Colton who borrowed a sum of 500 pounds for the purchase of two acres of land with farming and residential facilities. In the establishment of Australian colonial society, banks were for deposits only, until the formation of the Australian credit system allowed for the proper provision of loans, supported by government financial assurance (Malik, 2021)

Prior to its current rebrand initiated in October 2014, BankSA was formerly known as the Bank of South Australia. The predecessor of the bank of South Australia was the savings Bank of South Australia founded in 1848 and the state bank of south Australia. These outfits merged under the name state bank of south Australia in 1984.

The state bank of south Australia was compartmentalised and bought by the advance bank due to the deteriorating loan book and financial management (McCarthy, 2017). The savings bank was on the verge of collapse prior to a bailout by the state government of south Australia which was hastened by the 1991 royal commission into the organisation of public state funds of SA (Ibid). Advance Bank was purchased by St.George Bank in 1997 and the state bank became part of the greater Westpac corporate outfit once they merged with St.George Bank.

Westpac and synonymously BankSA launched online banking services via internet and smartphone application December 5, 2015 Following the digitalisation of most banking practises in Australia (Westpac, 2021). BankSA has adopted digital banking standards, including pay wave features on credit card products, apple pay and banking services via phone application, internet banking and phone banking. BankSA has also been one of the banks to partner with fintech company after pay which is a buy now pay later service. BankSA is adopting technology and digital strategy at the pace of its parent company Westpac. It has not acknowledged or adopted cryptocurrency trading platforms (Lalchandani, 2020), dissimilarly to its fellow competitor commonwealth bank. In an academic article about banking competition law, Dr leela Ceejnar from the university of Sydney suggests banks reject product competition in times of economic turbulence, this is to foster financial stability during periods of uncertainty (Ceejnar, 2012) as decentralised currency can pose risk to public finance (ibid).

In November 2005, the State Bank began its sponsorship of Australia's biggest arts festival, the Adelaide Fringe, with a A$1.4 million partnership until 2010.[2] This sponsorship has been renewed, and BankSA is the Fringe's principal partner until at least 2022.[3]

BankSA is a private company that also extends it banking services to government and public institutions and fellow private businesses, including the entities listed below: (BankSA, 2021) Law Society of South Australia Country Fire Service Volunteers Association Australian Medical Association Port Adelaide Football Club Additional local South Australian accounting, financial planning, legal and real estate firms Blogger Pearl Dy reported that the BankSA also offers a range of grants within the community from a fund established by BankSA staff (Dy, 2021).

BankSA has not been the subject of royal commission findings, however it does have an indirect history in two separate royal commissions. The 1991 Royal commission into south Australia determined that the state bank of South Australia had an underperforming loan book due to weak lending rules and operational inefficacy which lead to a government bailout (Malik, 2021). As part of the commission findings, the state bank of South Australia had to separate and sell off the profitable part of bank to advance bank which was acquired by the greater Westpac outfit in 2008. The royal commission findings of 1991 and the remediation pressure of those findings ultimately lead to the formation of BankSA from the failure of the state bank of south Australia (Malik, 2021).

Furthermore, BankSA ultimate parent company, Westpac, was implicated in the banking royal commission of 2017 and was ordered to pay the largest penalty of 1.3 billion for money laundering (Ryan, 2020). Ultimately BankSA was not directly implicated in any penalty or criminal action.

• Official website