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Date Published : Friday, May 16, 2008
One of the country's oldest financial services companies, BankSA has been part of the Australian banking sector since its very foundation in colonial times.
Its history, the backing of one of the country's largest banks and wide range of products has kept it at the top end of Australia's financial system for over 150 years.
Founded in 1848, the Savings Bank of South Australia was the forerunner of today's BankSA and it began as a small one person outfit in Gawler Place, Adelaide.
Providing savings services to the local mining companies, the bank grew and within a month started offering loans for land purchase. To this day, it is still a major player in the home loans and personal loans markets.
Many prominent South Australian's have been associated with the bank through the years, with its first chairman no less than Robert Torrens, who was followed in the post by Uluru discoverer Henry Ayers.
The bank survived until the 1970s when tough financial pressures saw it search for other alternatives and, in 1984 it merged with the State Bank of South Australia, with the merged entity taking the latter name. The Bank of South Australia - also known as BankSA - was bought by St George Bank in the 1990s and is now the Sydney-based bank's main public facing service in South Australia.
Nowadays, BankSA offers a range of financial products, including mortgages, credit cards, savings accounts, super funds, personal loans and wealth management funds.
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