OCU’s general manager Paul McNamara said he was “very excited” when he discovered the company was rated the 10th best credit union in the country.

Community CPS Australia took out the top spot.

Mr McNamara said: “It’s a completely independent rating so we had no idea how we’d performed until we saw the magazine.”

OCU has about 17,000 members which is roughly half of the city’s population.

“The magazine really did look at the business as a whole; it’s all about the products’ features, benefits and prices.

“We have good interest rates for loans and savings and very low fees or charges.

“In fact we no don’t even charge a loan establishment fee.”

“Because we’re member-owned we are able to determine how much profit we need to make and anything over that is given back to the members and the community.”

In the magazine’s annual survey of financial institutions it rated credit unions in several key areas including their success as a money minder, a home lender, a credit card issuer, a personal lender and as a business bank.

Major awards were given in three areas: bank of the year, building society of the year and credit union of the year while awards were given in 11 other categories.

“The (high rating) really was a team effort because we’ve all worked hard to provide a good product,” said Mr McNamara.

“It’s a credit to everyone, the staff the members and the board of directors.”