IBM credit union opens new branch

LONGMONT – IBM Rocky Mountain Employees Federal Credit Union, following a national trend, is opening a new branch in Longmont and plans to apply for regulatory approval to serve a wider audience.

The credit union, according the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), a federal agency that regulates and insures credit unions, now is awaiting regulatory approval to change its name. Its next step will be to apply for a community charter to keep its expansion options open, said Kerry Parry, marketing director for the credit union.

Although the process can be lengthy, such a charter could expand the credit union’s services to a geographic area vs. a charter that limits who it can serve by occupation.

A formal application for a community charter has not yet been received, said Lesia Bullock, a spokesperson for NCUA.

“The only thing that we have received from the credit union is a request to change their name,” Bullock said.

Parry hopes that the name and logo change will coincide with the opening of the new branch at 600 S. Airport Road. Construction began in June; the finish date is expected to be in late December or early January.

The credit union will take about 1,600 square feet of a $1 million 6,700-square-foot building, and officials plan to lease the balance. The credit union already has a location at 2142 N. Main St.

“They’re swamped,” Parry said. “It’s more difficult for us to serve everybody we need to serve in Longmont just from that one location.”

The trend toward community charters vs. charters attached to an employer or an association started a wave of litigation that led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling against such credit union expansion. The Supreme Court decision in February 1998 halted expansion of credit unions’ memberships across multi-occupational lines. That ruling was reversed, however, last July with the Senate passage H.R. 1151.

The law prompted the NCUA to adopt a new policy that made the community charter a more attractive option; a community charter allows a credit union to serve anyone within a specific geographic area. NCUA has approved entire counties.

“Those (applications that are) approved have to meet a specific requirement that the geographic area that they’re requesting is a well-defined local community where the residents interact,” Bullock said.

The process can take from three to nine months, depending on how complete an application is or on the size of the geographic area. Applicants with a proposed population of more than 400,000 must be considered by a board of directors that meets only once a month.

“Those sometimes can be in the pipeline longer,” Bullock said.

Parry said the new branch would not have a traditional teller line but instead would employ a system called point-to-point tellers, which is similar to going through a drive-through teller, but without a automobile.

The customer sees the teller on a TV screen and may pick up the phone and talk privately. The teller, in turn, is able to handle twice as many transactions, and security is addressed.

Credit union officials say that a high percentage of customers already use the Internet to do transactions.

“It has more of a retail feel when you walk into the building,” Parry said. “But people who are uncomfortable with that environment will still have the traditional lobby on the other end of Longmont.”

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