By Jessica Mathews / news@whmi.com


A local credit union merger is in the works.

LOC Federal Credit Union, which is headquartered in Farmington and has Livingston County branch locations, announced that it is merging with MemberFocus Community Credit Union headquartered in Dearborn. The decision to pursue a merger was unanimously approved by both credit unions’ Board of Directors earlier this summer after months of conversation.

President/CEO Stephen Grech says talks began in 2021 and then gained steam. He says the merger makes a lot of sense because MemberFocus has a state charter, which allows more opportunities for growth and can serve a larger field of membership. Since LOC is a federal charter, Grech says they’ll be acquiring their state charter by merging into them, which will allow them to hopefully serve the entire state of Michigan because they’ll concurrently apply for an expansion of their charter to include the entire state. That’s the plan, which Grech says is subject to regulatory approval and member votes among other items. He says the process takes a while and they hope to have the merger approved and completed no later than July 1st of next year.

The combined credit union would have nearly $445 (m) million in assets and more than 33,000 member accounts. Five branch locations would be maintained – one each in Howell and Hartland, two in Dearborn, and one in Farmington.

Grech tells WHMI the transition should be seamless and there would be no job reductions as a result of the merger. He stressed that there will not be any cuts to staff and the merger should actually result in more opportunities for them as a larger, more complex organization. Since the two credit unions are on the same co-operating system, Grech says the conversion should be relatively painless for customers.

Grech noted both credit unions have roots in serving the educational community as both started out as teachers’ credit unions. He said both are very strong financially and leadership for each will continue.

Grech will continue to lead as president/CEO while MemberFocus’ current President/CEO Jon Elliott will serve as Senior Executive Vice President. He noted LOC Credit Union will continue to keep their name and MemberFocus will be a division of LOC so that way they can keep their identity as well.

More information is available in the attached press release.