The combined institution will use Green Mountain Credit Union’s name. If it’s approved by state and federal regulators, the merger will close in the spring.
No jobs are expected to be lost in the merger, according to Bob Lake, CEO of Green Mountain Credit Union, which was founded in 1959. The combined organization would have about $165 million in assets and would serve more than 10,000 members, the two credit unions said in a prepared statement.
Opportunities, with branches in Winooski and Burlington, is a Community Development Financial Institution, or CDFI. It’s eligible for federal funding to provide low-interest loans in underserved communities, as well as financial education and business coaching.
The new, larger credit union would be able to expand Opportunities’ mission to Berlin and Rutland, where Green Mountain has branches, Lake added.
Opportunities, which opened in 1989, is one of half a dozen CDFIs in Vermont, according to Kate Laud, its former president and CEO. She’s now working as a consultant to the two institutions.
The small Winooski credit union has two financial counselors on staff and looks for ways to help customers who can’t get credit from another bank, or even open an account there.
“We work with people for sometimes up to a year to get their first credit rating or repair a low credit rating,” she said. Opportunities offers loans of as little as $2,000, sometimes unsecured, and lends money for used vehicles that other banks might refuse to cover, Laud said.
Lake said the new entity will apply for permission to expand those offerings.
“Our boards want everyone to have the opportunity to go to work, pay their bills or have a credit card,” Lake said. “Or if people want to start the next Fortune 500 company, we want everybody to have that opportunity.”
That’s been happening in Vermont, too. When Lake entered the industry in 1988, he said, Vermont had 72 credit unions. Now it has 15 — or 14, after the merger.
“When I got started, just about every municipality had an employees’ credit union,” Lake said.
The largest credit union in Vermont by far is EastRise, the new company that was formed when the Vermont State Employees Credit Union and New England Federal Credit Union merged early last year. The Williston-based company reported assets of $3 billion in its 2023 annual report.
The smallest is the 70-year-old St. Patrick’s Parish Credit Union, which is operated out of a home, as many credit unions were in the old days, Lake said. It has assets of about $600,000, according to a report from the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation.
Banks and credit unions offer many of the same services, such as savings and checking accounts and conventional loans. But most banks are for-profit institutions that are owned by shareholders, and most credit unions are owned by members. Credit unions tend to operate with a community-focused mission. Green Mountain, for instance, offers financial counseling.
“We truly have the same philosophy,” Lake said of the two credit unions. “If somebody wants and needs to borrow money, we are there to help them.”
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
