Bendigo Bank

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Bendigo Bank Limited

Type	Public (ASX:BEN)
Founded	1858
Headquarters	Bendigo, Australia
Industry	Financial services
Website	www.bendigobank.com.au

Community Branch at Braidwood, New South Wales

Bendigo Bank (ASX:BEN) operates some 350 branches, primarily in Victoria and Queensland. This includes 190+ Community Bank branches. The bank's national headquarters are in the city of Bendigo, and it has a regional headquarters in the Melbourne Docklands.

"Community Bank" is an innovative franchise program in which the local community owns and operates a Bendigo Bank branch (which is separately incorporated), and Bendigo Bank provides all the banking infrastructure and support. The community company and Bendigo Bank share all branch revenue with whatever is left over after the company pays its branch running costs remaining as profit. The program was a response to a massive closure of bank branches in rural areas. Bendigo Bank has since extended the program to areas that have bank service.

[edit] History and development

The company started in 1858 as a fixed-term (terminating) building society to improve conditions in the Bendigo goldfields during the Victorian gold rush.

Seven years old in 1865, the company restructured, taking the name Bendigo Mutual Permanent Land and Building Society which incorporated in Victoria 11 years afterwards. It continued to expand its holdings when in 1978 it merged with Bendigo and Eaglehawk Star, a building society establ;ished in 1901. Further growth involved the acquisition of the building societies Sandhurst in 1983 and Sunraysia in 1985, a merger with Sandhurst Trustees Ltd, and the acquisition of Capital and Compass building societies.

In 1982 BBS became the first financial institution in Australia to introduce successfully both Visa credit and debit cards.

In 1992 Bendigo Bank introduced the first "Green Loans" in Australia and formed "Community Sector Banking", a banking joint venture with the not-for-profit sector.

1993 saw BBS receive a stockmarket listing. Its growth continued throughout the 90s when it acquired National Mortgage Market Corporation Limited in 1995, a mortgage manager company focussed on loan Introducers and brokers. In that year, BBS converted to a bank with the name Bendigo Bank, further acquiring Monte Paschi Australia, which it renamed Cassa Commerciale Australia in 1997.

Bendigo Bank’s "Community Bank" program began in 1998 – the first branches opened in the western Victoria towns of Minyip and Rupanyup on June 26, and the first metropolitan branch in the outer eastern suburb of Upwey on October 19.

The late 1990s saw a further development when Bendigo Bank and Elders Australia formed Elders Rural Bank, a joint venture company focussed on agribusiness and rural Australia. Bendigo Bank was also the first financial institution to introduce a mortgage offset account, now a standard banking product in Australia.

In 1999 the bank formed an alliance involving mutual shareholding with IOOF.

The bank received its operating licence in 2000 and absorbed the First Australian Building Society in Queensland. That same year saw a $A75 million head office expansion in Bendigo. Five years later, BBS built a regional headquarters in premises on Harbour Esplanade in Melbourne Docklands. In 2007, Bendigo Bank rejected Bank of Queensland's merger/takeover proposal,^[1] while agreeing to merge with Adelaide Bank. The $A4 billion merger was completed on 30 November.^[2] A vote to change the merged company’s name to Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited is to be put to shareholders in 2008.^[2]