Bank of Queensland (BOQ) has signed an all-cash deal to acquire Members Equity Bank (ME) for about $1.3 billion (US$1.03 billion). Announced on Feb. 22, the deal will see the BOQ emerge as a nation’s sixth-largest bank, giving it the scale it needs to challenge the big four—NAB, CommBank, ANZ, and Westpac. The acquisition was fully funded through underwritten equity raising and is expected to be complete by the end of the 2021 financial year. BOQ chairman Patrick Allaway described the deal as “transformational” and “strategically aligned,” saying it was a major step in the bank’s plan to be “the leading customer-centric alternative” to the big players. “With the addition of the ME Bank business, BOQ now has a material scale and a compelling growth platform to support this ambition,” he said in a statement. ME is an industry super fund-owned mortgage lender launched in the 1990s, with a current …