WINNIPEG, Canada—Another attempt at resurrecting a merger between two credit unions has hit yet another roadblock.
Access Credit Union and Assinboine Credit Union attempted to merge earlier this year into an institution that would have had 155,000 total members, but the vote came up 25 votes short. Access CU’s bylaws required a two-third majority to vote in favor, but the final tally came in at 63%. In all, 704 votes were cast by Access CU members at the meeting, held at a local church, with 446 voting in favor.
Efforts to bring about a re-vote in the wake of a petition by members of Access CU have been stymied by the Financial Institutions Regulation Branch, which has rejected the currently proposed plan. Access CU’s leadership has indicated it will continue to look for ways to tweak the merger proposal in order to gain regulatory approval.
The credit unions had assumed the merger would be a slam dunk, and after the vote totals were announced at the Access CU meeting, the credit union’s chairman, Darryl, Loewen, said everyone sat in “stunned silence.”
Members of Assinboine CU had earlier voted 90% in favor of the merger.
Had the merger proceeded it would have created a $5.7-billion institution with 38 branches serving approximately 155,000 members. The combined CU would have been Canada’s sixth largest.