San Antonio FCU and Toyota FCU will share a branch and workers associated with a new truck-building plant set to open late next year.
The $220-million, Torrance, Calif.-based Toyota FCU will serve some 2,000 Toyota employees of the plant that will build 150,000 Tundra trucks annually.
Meantime, the $1.7-billion San Antonio FCU, which goes by the acronym SACU and whose field of membership has traditionally included Air Force base personnel as well as city and state workers, will serve some 1,500 new employees to be associated with the 18 suppliers for the plant.
The branch will help Toyota FCU add to the three branches it already owns, one in California and two in Kentucky, that together serve 15,000 members. Susan Osa, Toyota FCU's spokesperson, said that this is the first such accord for the credit union.
The plant is still under construction, part of Toyota's $800-million investment in the city, she said.
Jim Johnston, vice president and associate director of marketing, said that his credit union already has experience sharing a branch.
One of SAFCU's branches, located in Houston, is shared with Dallas-based Southwest Financial, he added. In the shared branch "there is a six-teller line, three theirs and three ours. We share rent, utilities" and building insurance, Johnston said.
Johnston said that he expects the plant to generate a lot more business activity in San Antonio. "It is a really big growth opportunity," he said. San Antonio's economy has in the past been somewhat tied to the military, he noted.
Toyota FCU agreed to partner with SACU, one of three credit unions in the San Antonio area that has more than $1 billion in assets.
Toyota FCU's Osa said that details of how the plant's branch will be shared have yet to be worked out. "We are only in the planning stages," she said.
SACU has in the past expanded into Houston after taking over a CU that was having trouble in 1982, he added. SACU is also looking to expand more in that city as well, he said.
