Undertaking its first merger in several years, the $2.3 billion State Employees Credit Union in Linthicum, Md., announced Tuesday it planned to consolidate the $81 million Anne Arundel County Employees FCU of Annapolis.

Merger discussions have been under way since the fourth quarter of last year with the healthy Annapolis CU deciding a limited product offering and tech capacity made scouting for a merger partner the right choice, said Rod Staatz, president/CEO of SECU, Maryland's largest state-chartered CU.

“We are delighted the management and board of Anne Arundel picked us after their CEO apparently shopped some of our branches and liked what he saw,” said Staatz, who is vice chairman of the Maryland/DC Credit Union Association.

Rick Stoll is president/CEO of Anne Arundel, which has two branches and 14,000 members in Millersburg and Annapolis.

“We will be able to offer a complete turnkey banking experience for members, with an assortment of robust mortgage programs, expanded home equity lines of credit and other services, like electronic banking services, not currently available at Anne Arundel,” Staatz said.

He said there are no current plans to pursue other mergers but there could be others in metro Washington “who find themselves in the same boat as Anne Arundel.”

Members of Anne Arundel will be asked to approve the merger at their annual meeting in April with completion of the transaction expected during the third quarter.

In another area, Staatz said his CU does expect to continue a “Take Banking a Different Direction” promotion which has been targeting bank customers to switch to SECU. The promotion has cited high fees at competing banks in the area.

Among the CU competitors, said SECU officials, has been the $183 million HAR-CO CU of Bel Air which has said it plans to become a mutual bank by April 1.

“We have been running our promotion in that area because we do have some Bel Air branches,” Staatz said.

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Maryland SECU Plans Merger With Anne Arundel Employees FCU

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