U Of I Community Credit Union Merges With Credit Union Serving Carle Employees

Members of the credit union serving Carle employees have voted to merge with the University of Illinois Community Credit Union, effective May 1st.

A U of I Credit Union news release says members of Carle Employees Federal Credit Union --- Carle C-U for short --- took the vote earlier this month. It was the final action needed for the merger to go ahead. The boards of the two credit unions had already approved the merger.

Carle C-U serves employees of the Carle Foundation, its hospitals and clinics and its Health Alliance subsidiary. UICCU Senior Vice-President Greg Anderson says Carle C-U saw a merger as a way to continue that service.

“They were interested in providing the continued value of credit union membership”, said Anderson, “looking at how they could provide expanded access to products and services, and also maintaining products and services, and also maintaining local control, local ownership, local service.”

Carle C-U is the smaller of the two credit unions. Formed in 1965, it has about 2,700 members and assets of more than $16 million. In comparison, U of I Community Credit Union is older (it was originally formed in 1932 to serve hourly wage earners on the U of I campus) and has a membership of more than 45,000, and assets of more than $328 million.

Carle C-U’s three employees are being offered jobs with the U of I credit union. Anderson says the Carle C-U office, located near Carle Hospital in Urbana, will remain open for the short term.

UICCU’s merger with Carle C-U follows previous mergers with other local credit unions, although Anderson says doing so does not represent any sort of planned growth strategy. UICCU merged with a credit union serving area electrical workers in 2008, and one for Champaign County employees in 2010.  In earlier years, it absorbed a credit union for Illinois Bell/Ameritech/AT&T employees in 1999 and combined with a credit union serving University of Illinois students in 1998.

UICCU was known as the University of Illinois Employees Credit Union for many years. It changed the “Employees” to “Community” in 2015, a reflection that membership was now open to the general public in its service area, not just certain employee or other groups. Today, UICCU membership is open to residents of eleven central Illinois counties, although its offices and most of its ATM’s are in Champaign County.