How an Adelaide customer-owned bank it taking on a changing Australia
A rocky economy, changing consumer priorities and a human desire to back community initiatives are the headwinds blowing in favour of Adelaide’s Beyond Bank.
The CEO of one of South Australia’s top companies has inherited a Frankenstein-like business, pieced together over 65 years and about 60 different mergers.
Gradual growth achieved by Beyond Bank – a mutual bank owned by its customer-members – has pushed the institution into the top 30 in the 2026 South Australian Business Index. It has not been an overnight journey.
It has been one of seeking to win over communities, raising its brand profile in almost every Australian state and becoming a B Corp bank, meaning it has proven environmental, social and governance credentials.
CEO David Marshall joined Beyond Bank one year and nine months ago, and he believes the business reflects its membership, a sum of its parts with its profits ploughed back into community organisations like the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the RSPCA SA and Camp Quality.
In 2026, its long history and status as a mutual is advantageous, he told InDaily.
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“We’re owned by our members; we’re not owned by shareholders offshore or anywhere else,” said Marshall, a New Zealand-born banking sector leader who previously helmed banks Ultradata and Defence Bank.
“That ethos has to be central to what we do. In this environment, I think people are really looking for simplicity in their lives.
“There’s a bit of a retreat to the village ideology. People are seeking security, strength.”
This rise in customers seeking out tradition was something Beyond Bank had to balance with its status as a true alternative to the Big Four as they continue to pile up bigger and bigger billion-dollar profits each quarter.
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He said Beyond Bank members chose the bank for many reasons, including the fact that the bank – which operates in every state except for Queensland – has a “high percentage of branches for our size” with 51 across the country.
Or maybe it is because the mutual bank supports many not-for-profit organisations – more than 4000 across Australia including the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the RSPCA. In the 2026 financial year, the bank made $2.5 million in community contributions.
“That’s very much where we’ve been focused on, quite relentlessly, for 20 years,” Marshall said.
“But we can’t do all those great things if we don’t run a good business.”
The bank is doing well on core metrics; profit after tax in FY26 was up by about $7 million to $50.6 million, and it added 38,361 members in the financial year, giving it a total of 349,152 members.
And Beyond Bank is growing amid a period of booming profits from the Big Four – Westpac, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and NAB. Just this month, NAB recorded a $6.14 billion profit for the 2026 full year.
Marshall said this era of booming Big Bank profits was working in Beyond Bank’s favour, “provided that we can continue as we are, adapting to what our members want”.
“But banks are owned by shareholders. Many of those are in Australia, many of those overseas, many are individuals, many are institutions, and that’s the business model that they’re in.
“Our business is very simple; all of our profits go back into members and products and services.”
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