Suncorp Group

Suncorp Group

Type	Public
Traded as	ASX: SUN
Industry	General insurance Banking Life insurance Superannuation Wealth management
Founded	1996 (1996)
Headquarters	Brisbane, Australia
Area served	Australia and New Zealand
Key people	Ziggy Switkowski Chairman Michael Cameron CEO
Revenue	A$16.72 billion (2015)
Operating income	A$3.48 billion (2015)
Profit	A$1.13 billion (2015)
Total assets	A$95.6 billion (2015)
Total equity	A$13.7 billion (2015)
Number of employees	~14,500 (2015)
Subsidiaries	Suncorp Bank Suncorp Insurance GIO AAMI Apia Vero Shannon's JustCar Bingle Terri Scheer Asteron Life
Website	suncorpgroup.com.au

Suncorp Group Limited is an Australian finance, insurance, and banking corporation based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is one of Australia's largest banks (by combined lending and deposits) and its largest general insurance group, formed on 1 December 1996 by the merger of Suncorp, Metway Bank and the Queensland Industry Development Corporation (QIDC).

Queensland established the State Accident Insurance Office in 1919, to provide mandatory injury compensation insurance to workers in the state's business sector. New legislation soon after created a larger insurance body, the State Government Insurance Office (SGIO) which took over the State Accident Insurance Office. General insurance, third party and life products were added. SGIO later expanded into building society operations, superannuation, and finance.

In 1960, new legislation establishing the SGIO as a separate corporation was passed, and the group became subject to state regulatory oversight. In 1971, the SGIO took another step toward full-fledged corporate status, forming its own board of directors. At this time, the operations involving injury compensation for workers were placed under a separate board. By 1976, as SGIO's insurance operations took on a more commercial orientation, the company closed down its building society operations.

The next step toward the SGIO's move toward the private sector came in 1985. Under new legislation, the company dropped the SGIO name in favour of the name Suncorp and its employees lost their status as civil servants. At the same time, Suncorp became an independent corporation, although still government controlled. By the mid 1990s, Suncorp was an allfinanz (i.e. with combined banking, financial, and insurance operations) group and had assets of nearly $10 billion.

Metway Bank started as the Metropolitan Permanent Building Society which was founded in 1959. In the late 1980s, Metropolitan joined the trend among Australia's building societies to expand into being full-scale banks. In 1988, Metropolitan abandoned its status as a building society to reincorporate as a bank. Metway, as the new bank was called, listed publicly and began acquiring a number of rival banks and building societies. Metway became the largest Queensland based bank by the mid 1990s. Metway's operations also extended into the other eastern states and the assets of the bank were more than $7 billion.