Rainier Pacific Community Credit Union in Fife, Wash., converted to a mutual savings bank this week, becoming the 13th credit union and the largest to do so since Sept. 1, 1995, when Lusitania Savings Bank in Newark, N.J., got the ball rolling.
Rainier Pacific Bank, which has assets of $380 million, was this years first conversion. Alan D. Theriault, president of CU Financial Services, a consulting firm in Portland, Maine, said he expects at least five more credit unions to become mutual savings banks in 2001, which would make it the busiest year ever for conversions.
There are two in the application stage and three or four more in the pipeline, he said. Things are starting to happen a little faster now.
Victor Toy, Rainier Pacifics vice president for strategic planning, said the company grew at a double-digit clip throughout the 1990s and that being a mutual savings bank will help it maintain a brisk pace. Converting will enable us to grow at a more aggressive rate, he said.
Rainier has a $272 million loan portfolio, and Mr. Toy said it will have to add capital if it is to keep lending under credit union regulations.
Rainier Pacifics members voted on the conversion Nov. 27. More than 71% of the 5,700 who cast ballots approved.
Founded in 1932 to serve teachers in and around Tacoma, Wash., Rainier Pacific broadened its membership until it became a community credit union in 1995, serving all of Pierce County. Mr. Toy said Rainier Pacific will continue to focus on serving communities in Pierce County as a mutual savings bank. He said it has no plans to become a publicly traded company.
Only one of the other credit unions that have converted to mutual savings banks has sold stock. IGA Federal Savings Bank in Philadelphia, which converted from a credit union on July 1, 1998, went public in October 1999. PSB Bancorp announced Nov. 2 that it had agreed to acquire IGA in a deal scheduled to close this quarter.
