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Credit Union Members Hear About Merger at Annual Meeting; Local Profit Rises to $1.5 Million
Members of Border Credit Union heard about merger plans when they attended an annual meeting in Provost on Wednesday night.
Following a supper Border Credit Union chairman and visitor to town, Doug Hastings said that 2002’s “terrible drought” caused problems in the community and stated that big banks “turned their backs on agriculture and small business in Alberta.” He also said that credit unions in Alberta are continuing consolidating their operations. He brought local credit union members up-to-date on plans to join with other credit unions and that Border Credit Union is “confident of lasting benefits from a planned merger with Commonwealth Credit Union. Grande Prairie & District Savings & Credit Union and Fairview & District Savings & Credit Union are also expected to merge with Border Credit Union.
Rod Hawken, a past director of BCU said that the merger will “make us all stronger in the end.” As a former board member (who now lives in Wetaskiwin with his family), he was thanked for his four years of service.
Harry Small, who was elected to take over director’s duties from Hawken said that it will be an interesting year because of the mergers and commended the board for having the insight to put the mergers together to “add stability to the credit unions.”
President and chief executive officer Jeff Mulligan also brought greetings and talked about a variety of credit union activities. He said the new expanded credit union for northern Alberta “is overdue”. He pointed out that banks have changed and the credit union realized they had to do something. Mulligan said that low interest rates have impacted the credit union’s bottom line so action was taken. “We are a victim of our own success” he said and also stressed that Provost and Dewberry Border Credit Union branches are very important to the communities that they serve as will be the new eight branches that will be joining.
Mulligan said that Provost’s Border Credit Union branch is “one of the best performing branches in the country.”
Mulligan also defended the mergers and said that it does not mean a change to core values. “We don’t have an urban bone in our bodies. They (urban credit unions) are not bad but they are different.” He says that an office will also be opened in Edmonton with one or two people to serve visiting credit union members when in that centre.
Local branch manager Debbie Bishop also talked of the “worst drought in 133 years”, low interest rates and global uncertainty in the marketplace.
Bishop went through a slide presentation that showed assets of the branch grew from $80.3 million to $87.2 million. Profits went from $1.302 million the previous year to $1.586 million in 2002 (68 percent went back to members). She noted that each day at the branch 1,600 transactions take place on average; of that electronic transactions surpass cheques by 34 percent.
The manager also showed pictures of her recent trip to the republic of Ghana where she and 11 others visited credit union operations and schools the last two weeks in February. Ghana has 24 credit unions and Bishop says they are behind Canadian credit unions “by about 25 years.”
Chairman Hastings stated that night that the Provost branch is a model for growth and its profit is “very good.”
Rounding out the evening was a talk from archeologist and anthropologist Terry Gibson who discussed a large find of bones, pottery remnants and arrow points at Bodo. (Story on this elsewhere in this paper).
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