RALEIGH, N.C. While credit unions around the country are touting their expanding interstate service, State Employees’ CU is clear: it has no such ambitions and only wants to serve members in the Tar Heel State.
“We are going to serve folks in North Carolina,” Jim Blaine, SECU president, told Credit Union Journal, “But we’re not able to serve you if you’re relocating or living in another state.
“We are North Carolina-focused. We’re here, we belong here and we’re good at it,” Blaine explained, adding the CU’s board of directors has set this policy.
“We tell [members], you can keep your checking account and you can keep your credit card,’ but we will tell them to go to a local credit union,” said Blaine. The $26-billion CU blankets North Carolina with 235 branches and 1,100 ATMs, but has no branches and no ATMs outside the state, and is not a member of the CO-OP Financial Services national ATM network.
To Blaine’s thinking, members moving out of state can get better service at a credit union that knows the local landscape, the rules and regulations and can provide a continued personal level of service. “We don’t lend in any other state,” he said. “We really can’t serve people from other states.”
SECU will, however, make exceptions for members moving to or living in communities contiguous to North Carolina, in Virginia or South Carolina, he added.
