Members of Hanover Federal Credit Union will have access to more services once the local organization merges with Piedmont Advantage Credit Union Dec. 1, officials say.
 
The merger, announced earlier this week, will add Hanover’s roughly 1,700 members to Winston-Salem-based Piedmont Advantage’s membership of about 46,000, said Belinda Wilson, PACU’s vice president of development, on Thursday.
 
Being part of a larger credit union will give Hanover Credit Union members access to more products and services, Jim Hurley, Hanover’s CEO, also said on Thursday.
 
“Piedmont Advantage has a line of mortgage-based products we can’t offer because of our size. Credit cards are cost-prohibitive for us,” he said. “And to offer electronic data services, you must have security and insurance, both of which are very expensive.
 
“It became very difficult for us, with the increasing cost of [complying with] regulations and the cost of doing business in general. It was burdensome for us to remain profitable.”
 
As part of the transaction, Hurley will retire and two Hanover employees will become employees of PACU. The office, at 3802 Cherry Ave. – very close to PACU’s location - will close.  
 
Hurley is upbeat about his members’ future with PACU, especially since the members voted in favor of the merger after the transaction was approved in mid-October by credit union regulators.
 
“Piedmont Advantage is a very good credit union," Hurley said. "As standards go, it’s considered a small to mid-size credit union and it’s still very personal.”
 
For its part, PACU is happy to expand its base in Wilmington almost exactly two years after it merged with Wilmington-based East Coast Credit Union and established its first office here, Wilson said.
 
“We have considered a merger with Hanover since PACU merged with East Coast Credit Union,” she said.
 
East Coast Credit Union, which had about 2,500 members at that time, was founded in 1955 to serve the financial needs of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employees in the Wilmington area. Hanover Credit Union was established the following year, chartered by the New Hanover County Board of Education to serve teachers. Membership was soon widened to admit employees of the county and its municipalities, Hurley said.
 
When the Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998 allowed credit unions to become community organizations, open to anyone who lived, worked or worshipped in the area, it brought a “huge influx” of large credit unions to Wilmington, Hurley said, adding that Hanover Credit Union chose not to expand its membership.
 
The result was that the small credit unions locally were gradually absorbed by larger ones.
 
“Hanover is the last one of those small credit unions,” he said.
 
“We are very pleased to welcome Hanover Federal Credit Union’s employees and members into the Piedmont Advantage Credit Union Family,” Judy Tharp, PACO’s president and CEO, said in a news release.  “This transaction will help us to expand our reach in one of the growing communities in North Carolina while adding experienced financial services professionals to our organization. Hanover Federal Credit Union has a long history of high-quality customer service among its members, and we look forward to enhancing their experience with our ‘Members Come First’ approach to financial services.”