1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2002
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 25/01/2002
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In addition to banks, financial institutions such as building societies, credit unions and merchant banks play an important part in the Australian financial system. In the Australian Financial Accounts, Other depository institutions are defined as those with liabilities included in the Reserve Bank's definition of broad money. Non-bank institutions included in broad money are Other authorised depository institutions (building societies and credit cooperatives), corporations registered under the Financial Corporations Act 1974 in categories D (money market corporations), E (pastoral finance companies), F (finance companies) and G (general financiers), and cash management trusts.
There are seven categories of other depository corporations. Permanent building societies are usually organised as financial cooperatives. They are authorised to accept money on deposit. They provide finance principally in the form of housing loans to their members. Credit cooperatives - also known as credit unions - are similar to building societies. As their name implies, they are organised as financial cooperatives which borrow from and provide finance to their members. Credit cooperatives mainly lend for purposes other than housing. Supervision of building societies and credit cooperatives was transferred to APRA on 1 July 1999, and from 1 July 2000 these institutions are no longer subject to the Financial Corporations Act 1974. Money market corporations are similar to wholesale banks and for this reason they are often referred to as merchant or investment banks. They have substantial short-term borrowings which they use to fund business loans and investments in debt securities. They are registered as category D financial corporations under the Financial Corporations Act 1974. Pastoral finance companies incur liabilities to lend to rural producers. They are category E financial corporations. Finance companies (category F financial corporations) borrow mainly on financial markets, for example by issuing debentures. They lend these funds to both businesses and persons. Their lending to businesses is sometimes called commercial lending and covers, for example, financial leasing of vehicle fleets. Their lending to persons is often in the form of instalment credit to finance retail sales by others. In contrast with finance companies, general financiers (category G financial corporations) are funded by their parent or another member of their company group. Typically they lend to corporate customers who buy products produced by member companies of their group. For example, a general financier within a motor vehicle manufacturing group will lend to the group's dealers to finance their inventory of vehicles. Cash management trusts are investment funds which are open to the public. They invest the pooled monies of their unit holders mainly in money-market securities such as bills of exchange and bank certificates of deposit. As with other public unit trusts their operations are governed by a trust deed and their units are redeemable by the trustee on demand or within a short time. They are not subject to supervision by APRA or registered under the Financial Corporations Act 1974.
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