Bear Paw Credit Union considering merger

Members of Bear Paw Credit Union soon will vote on whether or not to merge into Altana Federal Credit Union, a merger which Bear Paw Credit Union Vice President Gerry Veis says will be overwhelmingly beneficial to their membership.

A letter explaining the merger and a ballot have already been sent to members of the local credit union, but the official election, in which every member with a primary account gets one vote, isn’t until Dec. 1 at a special meeting in the Duck Inn Antique Room at 5 p.m.

Veis said the time between now and then is for members to come in and ask questions which he and the others at the credit union will be happy to answer, but they will also go over everything at the Dec. 1 meeting before receiving the ballots.

He said the credit union has gone through two mergers in the last 20 years and they always have a strategic planning team to review whether any given merger would be beneficial to membership.

He said they’ve been considering this particular merger for a little over a year and he sees very little downside, and a whole lot of benefits.

“It’s going to be hugely beneficial to membership because there will be products and services that we don’t have the capability of offering at the size we currently are,” he said.

Veis said that in addition to being able to offer more products and services, including a robust commercial agriculture lending program, the merger will also improve members’ experiences with online and mobile banking and get better real-time assistance through phone and online chat from their support center.

He said these technological improvements are especially important to the next generation of members, who are generally more engaged with this kind of service.

He also said the merger will allow them to offer better choices to people in terms of rewards checking accounts.

While Veis said these improvements will be great for members he wants to emphasize that the merger will not fundamentally change how they operate on the local level.

Altana, he said, is a Montana firm that works in the same kind of communities they do, and they wouldn’t consider a merger with a credit union outside of Montana because they want to keep their rural focus.

“We want to stay with our rural-family environment and keep providing that kind of service,” he said.

Veis said Bear Paw has about 13,000 members and Altana has around 26,000, so they’re not that much bigger, and he promised that even if Bear Paw’s name changes they will never stop being a local, rural-focused credit union.

He said he and his fellows at the credit union are happy to answer members’ questions and anything that isn’t answered on their frequently-asked-questions sheet, they will answer in detail.