Saver.

The Australian Government guarantees aggregated deposits with Australian authorised deposit-taking institutions, including Illawarra Credit Union (a division of Community First Credit Union Limited), of up to $A250,000.

The Financial Claims Scheme (FCS) is an Australian Government scheme that was established during the 2008 global financial crisis to provide financial protection for consumers in the unlikely event of a failure of a bank, credit union, building society or general insurer.

The FCS provides protection for depositors of banks, credit unions and building societies that are incorporated in Australia (also known as authorised deposit-taking institutions or ADIs), for deposits up to $250,000 per account holder per ADI. The FCS limit of $250,000 applies to the sum of an account holder’s deposits under the one banking licence.  This includes accounts with any other banking business that the licenced banking institution may operate under a different trading name.  Community First Credit Union Limited operates the brands Illawarra Credit Union, Community First Bank and Easy Street Financial Services.  For the purpose of FCS, all deposits held under the different brands are added together to determine the FCS entitlement for an account holder. The scheme aims to return deposits to account holders within seven days of activation of the FCS.

The FCS can be activated by the Australian Government in the unlikely event that an ADI or general insurer fails.

Once activated, the FCS will be administered by APRA.

The objectives of the FCS are to:

• protect depositors of ADIs, and claimants of general insurers, from potential loss in the unlikely event of the failure of these institutions;
• provide depositors with prompt access to their deposits that are protected under the FCS; and
• support the stability of the Australian financial system.

Further information about the Government Guarantee can be obtained from the APRA website at www.fcs.gov.au.