SBS Bank Hamilton celebrates 10 years

MEDIA RELEASE

17 December 2010

SBS Bank Hamilton celebrates 10 years

Hamilton resident Ken Wyatt has a long-standing family history with SBS Bank – he’s dated it back as far as the 1920’s when his family took out a mortgage with SBS to purchase the house of well-known New Zealand author Dan Davin, in Invercargill.

Born and bred in Greenhills, in the deep south near Bluff, Mr Wyatt left Southland in the 1970s but he has never let his strong family connection with SBS wane. He came back on board with SBS when the Automobile Association, in Hamilton, acted as an agent for SBS services and products in 1998 and he was the first person through the doors when SBS Bank opened its Hamilton branch 10 years ago.

Today (Friday 17th) Mr Wyatt was back at SBS Bank Hamilton to share some 10th birthday wishes with a cake for the team and the chance to reminisce about the success of SBS Bank.

“I’m a believer that if you’re happy in life with the things you’ve got then you tell everyone about it and that’s why I’m always telling everyone about SBS Bank. I was the first one to make a transaction when the Hamilton branch opened in 2000 and I even found out when the Tauranga branch opened in 2006 and raced across to celebrate their opening with them as well.

“The Wyatt family have a great history with Southland and SBS Bank and I love sussing things out and chasing the roots and history that we have,” Mr Wyatt said.

SBS Bank Hamilton manager Rod Fox said the team at SBS Bank Hamilton were always eager to spread some Christmas cheer with their customers at this time of the year and it was great to have a double reason to celebrate this month as they marked their 10th anniversary in the Waikato.

The Hamilton branch was the first and only North Island branch to be opened by the SBS Bank on 18 December 2000. It remained the only North Island branch until SBS Bank Tauranga opened in 2006. This year the North Island network doubled with the addition of two HBS Bank branches in Hastings and Napier following the merger of HBS with SBS Bank on 31 August.

Mr Fox said like their Waikato branch, SBS Bank had come a long way in 10 years.

“Back in 2000, SBS’s total assets hit $900 million and we had an operating surplus of $11 million. Since then we’ve introduced full transactional banking, an extensive range of new products and services, more than doubled the network with the addition of a further 10 branches throughout the country, taking our total number of branches to 17, and we’ve attained bank registration.

“This year SBS Bank achieved another solid performance in another particularly challenging year with total assets up $87 million to $2.63 billion and an operating surplus of $19.4 million. It’s a great result for New Zealand’s only customer-owned bank – one that has retained its structure of a building society just as it was founded in Invercargill 141 years ago.”

Mr Fox said they had several of their very first customers visiting the branch with well wishes and gifts for their 10th anniversary.

“It’s been wonderful to reminisce about the many positive developments and events that we’ve all experienced at SBS Bank during the past decade and we’re looking forward to another fantastic 10 years of providing our customers with exceptional service and supporting our community here in the Waikato.”

ENDS

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