ANCHORAGE, Alaska-The integration of five California branches purchased by Alaska USA FCU from Arrowhead CU earlier this year (
McCue, senior vice president at $4.1-billion Alaska USA FCU, said the process has been a bit slow due to the multi-step nature of the takeover.
"We have signed up 7,000 to 8,000 new members," he reported. "We would like to have more, but we had to run dual branches for a while as part of the agreement we had with Arrowhead. During the transition members had the opportunity to continue to do business with Arrowhead, so those members would not be out in the cold."
The dual-branch operation continued through the end of August, until, on Sept. 1, they became just Alaska USA branches. More recently, McCue pointed out, Alaska USA began performing shared branching transactions at four of the five former Arrowhead branches (
Alaska USA already is seeing an uptick in consumer lending and real estate lending at the new branches, McCue said, adding, "We are still tweaking the facilities but they are good facilities in good locations."
The next step is to look at "how we can serve Alaska USA members in the High Desert area, and we have a pretty good branch network. This has always been about a growth opportunity for Alaska USA and we are seeing good, steady growth from it."
Arrowhead Credit Union continues to operate under NCUA conservatorship.
