Suncorp named Money's Bank of the Year for 2022
By Money Team
Suncorp has almost had a lock on this award for the past few years. This should come as no surprise for those who have looked into its heritage, who it serves, what drives it and what it is striving to create.
It is the ninth biggest bank and, combined with its insurance and wealth management divisions, it has almost $100 billion in assets, making it one of Australia's largest and most comprehensive financial institutions.
One of the things that makes Suncorp different is that by originating and being based in Queensland, it has a rare mix of being both big and small, metro and rural, consumer-focused yet not neglecting its business customers.
Being Queensland-based gives it other perspectives. It lives the natural disasters with its customers side by side because it's facing them, too.
There's hardly a better way to demonstrate how this has impacted Suncorp than to look at its Build it Back Better program, which gives eligible customers lodging a claim the ability to improve their home's resilience to natural hazards.
But as an ASX top 50 company with 13,000 employees, it can't operate like a mutual, member-owned bank. But that's still in its DNA, and it has been reinforced by its merger with smaller institutions and mutuals, many regionally based, over the years.
Almost 60% of Suncorp's business is in insurance, with 40% in banking. It has extensive operations in New Zealand.
About 80% of its lending goes to housing, with businesses and agriculture also accounting for a large part of its business. This mix puts it front and centre in the community.
With customers like this, it's easy to appreciate why Suncorp is so focused on environmental, sustainability and governance (ESG) principles, in particular natural disaster resilience, as well as accessibility and affordability, climate change responses, being a purposeful and responsible business and being available to vulnerable customers.
As important as these factors are, Suncorp's customers also need their bank to offer competitive products. Its basic home loans are consistently in the top 20% for value and variable rate loans are in the top 30%.
In credit cards, it competes aggressively with the other major banks, as it does in term deposits, especially for short-term rates.
In second place this year is ANZ, Australia's fourth-largest bank, with Macquarie Bank, our fifth largest, nabbing the third spot.
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