BoQ acquisition of ME Bank set to reach another milestone

BRISBANE (CU)_In July last year, the Bank of Queensland (BoQ) acquired Melbourne-based ME Bank, which had been losing market share in the ultra-competitive mortgage market at the time. Since then, the direct bank has returned to growth and its acquisition is set to reach another milestone this week.
George Frazis, the chief executive of BoQ said that the firm is looking to integrate the two banks’ funding in order to bring cost-savings and efficiencies and will therefore hand back ME Bank’s authorised deposit-taking institution (ADI) licence to APRA this week. “We’ll be able to combine our treasuries, we’ll be able to combine wholesale funding,” he said. “With two ADIs you have to manage capital at both the individual and the combined levels, so it provides us more flexibility on the balance sheet to help fund our investment and our growth.”
The BoQ chief noted that the acquisition of ME Bank had given the Brisbane-based financial service provider a…