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Officially, there have been 14 publicly announced credit union-bank acquisitions in 2025. Unofficially, the number stands at 16.
Pending regulatory approvals, the $8.2 billion Michigan State University Federal Credit Union (MSUFCU) in East Lansing is planning to acquire the $451 million Gold Coast Bank in Chicago and the $496 million American Eagle Bank in South Elgin, Ill. MSUFCU said it submitted its applications to the NCUA in late 2024. The banks sent their applications in March 2025, according to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.
Regardless of the number of official and unofficial credit union-bank buy deals, it is considerably less than 22 that were announced in 2024, a record high. Seventeen acquisitions were completed, three of them were called off and two, ELGA Credit Union in Michigan/Marine Bank in Florida and REV Federal Credit Union in South Carolina/First Neighborhood Bank in West Virginia, are pending.
However, because MSUFCU’s proposed deals have not been announced by neither the credit union nor the banks, it drew criticism from the Independent Bankers of America (ICBA).
Michael Emancipator, SVP and regulatory counsel at the ICBA, said the lack of consistent public notice when credit unions acquire community banks raises serious transparency concerns.
“Historically, both the acquiring credit union and the selling bank issued upbeat press releases. But as scrutiny of the community harms posed by these deals has increased, select transactions are handled quietly,” he said. “When tax-paying community banks are acquired by tax-exempt credit unions, avoiding attention to unpopular deals is increasingly becoming a deliberate strategy.”
MSUFCU countered it is committed to transparent communication.
“In our application process with the FDIC and NCUA, all required public notices were properly handled,” MSUFCU stated. “Transparent communication occurs in many channels and with input from all directly involved parties; public relations announcements are not the only option and based on expected regulatory approval timing do not always make sense to do at [the] time of application but at other times throughout the approval process.”
MSUFCU said it plans to release a public statement as soon as it hears back from state and federal regulators.
Of the 14 publicly announced credit union-bank acquisition agreements, four have been completed: Frontwave Credit Union/Community Valley Bank (California); NuMark Credit Union/Lemont National Bank (Illinois); Legacy Credit Union/First Community Bank (Alabama); and MAPS Credit Union/Lewis & Clark Bank (Oregon).
These four deals were announced in January, March and April.
Another agreement announced in April, MIDFLORIDA Credit Union/Prime Meridian Bank, is pending.
In May, two deals were announced: Frontier Credit Union in Idaho/First Citizens Bank in Montana and Avenir Financial Federal Credit Union/Mission Bank. These agreements are also pending.
Three agreements announced in July that are still pending are: San Francisco Federal Credit Union/Summit Bank; OnPath Federal Credit Union/Heritage Bank (Louisiana); and America First Federal Credit Union in Utah/Meadows Bank in Las Vegas.
In August, Land of Lincoln Credit Union announced its proposed acquisition of Williamsville State Bank & Trust in Illinois.
Three months later, in November, three more pending acquisitions were announced: GECU (Texas)/Bank of the Southwest (New Mexico); Community First Credit Union (Florida)/First Southern Bank (Georgia); and St. Lawrence Federal Credit Union/Citizens National Bank (New York).
Peter Strozniak can be reached at peter.strozniak@arc-network.com.
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