PORTLAND, Ore. -- Inter-state branching by credit unions is on a minor upswing in the Northwest.
For one, Oregon's largest, the $2.6 billion Onpoint Comm-unity, has opened the first of three Washington State branches in Safeway Supermarkets in Vancouver, Wash., a Portland suburb.
And a competitor, the $740 million Unitus Community CU, is planning a July 16 grand opening, also in Vancouver, for its first across-the-state-line full service branch in a shopping center.
"We've long sought a way to serve the 3,100 members we have in the Vancouver area, and now we'll be able to do it," explained Laurie Kresl, Unitus vice president of planning and business development.
Both Onpoint and Unitus filed regulatory paperwork late last year in Olympia, Wash., to open the Washington State facilities in 2008, with Onpoint planning two more of the Safeway outlets complete with high-tech ATMs by the end of this month.
Meanwhile, Spokane Teachers CU more than a year ago opened its first branches in Idaho with facilities at Silver Lake and Post Falls and now plans are on the drawing boards for a third office in Coeur d'Alene in the Idaho Panhandle.
Unitus said opening of the Vancouver office will increase to eight the number of branches in the two states, with facilities in metropolitan Portland and in Salem, the state capital.
The new 4,500 square foot Vancouver office will be located in the Mill Plain Crossing shopping center and will be full service offering mortgage and business loans.
For its part, OnPoint said it would be holding "communitywide grand opening celebrations" for all three Safeway stores and, as part of the promotions, would be conducting Supermarket Sweeps, with one winning shopper grabbing all of the groceries that can be loaded into a grocery cart in three minutes.
--jrubenscut@aol.com
