Bank of Queensland (BOQ) has signed an all-cash deal to acquire Members Equity Bank (ME) for $1.325 billion. The move announced on Feb. 22 will see the Brisbane-based bank become the nation’s sixth-largest, giving it the scale in needs to challenge the four big banks in Australia—the National Australia Bank, the Commonwealth Bank, the ANZ and Westpac—also known as the big four. The acquisition is 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 is 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 …