Proposed Access and Assiniboine Credit Union Merger Defeated | Outlook Financial | Discussion forum

Winnipeg, Manitoba – April 22, 2015
The proposed merger of Access and Assiniboine Credit Unions was narrowly defeated tonight when members of Access Credit Union decided they could not support their Board of Directors' special resolution to merge with Assiniboine Credit Union.

At their annual meeting in Winkler, just over 700 Access Credit Union members voted 63.2% in favour of the merger. However for the motion to pass, two-thirds or 66.6% of the total votes cast would have to have supported the merger. Simultaneously, 518 members of Assiniboine Credit Union voted at their annual meeting in Winnipeg and voted 95% in favour the merger.

Board Chairs Margaret Day of Assiniboine and Darryl Loewen of Access said they were both disappointed by the outcomes, but in a co-operative business model like a credit union the membership has the final say.

"While as a board we firmly believed the merger would make two strong credit unions stronger, our members felt otherwise," Loewen.

Loewen added that their board will carefully review the outcome of tonight's vote to see exactly what members didn't like about the merger and how to proceed.

"Clearly not enough of their membership felt they could support the proposal and we respect that," said Day.

Had the proposed merger been supported the new entity would have been the largest credit union in Manitoba by assets, branches and members – and the sixth largest in Canada.

Assiniboine Credit Union has 112,806 eligible voting members while Access Credit Union has 42,050.