Three Saskatchewan credit unions, including Lloydminster’s Synergy Credit Union, are in talks to unite.
Conexus has roots beginning in 1937 as the Regina Co-operative Savings and Credit Union. It currently manages almost $10 billion in assets and has 886 employees serving more than 141,000 members across 30 locations in Saskatchewan.
Cornerstone has been operating since 1941. It has over $2.5 billion in assets with 15 branches within East-Central Saskatchewan. Cornerstone Credit Union serves over 30,000 members and has 280 employees.
Synergy’s story starts in 1943 as the Lloydminster Savings and Credit Union. It currently has over 27,000 members across west-central Saskatchewan, with 12 branches. It has 238 employees and manages over $2.5 billion in assets.
Glenn Stang, CEO of Synergy who will be retiring on Dec. 31 says as they build the business case, they welcome member feedback. The members of all the credit unions will get to vote on the marriage possibly by next June.
“Our board has really framed some expectations around the areas of due diligence to ensure that we are bringing value to our membership, staff, and our communities. We want to have that business case complete by the end of March. That’s just in time for our AGM in April. So assuming that our business case shows all the positive outcomes that we are hoping it will our board will be in a position to recommend merging to our membership, and we would target a vote sometime in June,” says Stang.
Building a business case will allow the credit unions to verify the quality of the assets, examine what a name change might look like, the CEO selection process, and the cultures, and processes of the three credit unions, among other matters.
Stang who has been in the industry for some 40 years notes when he started there were over 1,300 credit unions across Canada and that’s dwindled to under 300. He cites increased competition, the changing regulations like open banking by the federal government, technology changes, and slower growth in their trade area as propelling the need to adapt.
He says across Canada, credit unions are merging to “gain scale.”
“We really want to talk with credit unions to see how we could work together for a stronger more resilient province-wide credit union.”
Stang sees by consolidating the talents of credit unions, they can collectively address their future.
