October 21, 2009

Callahan & Associates, the credit union industry’s leading analytics firm and publishers of CreditUnions.com, have just released their 2010 Credit Union Directory. Comparing this year’s directory against last year’s, The Financial Brand has noted 75 substantive name changes.

Some of these name changes may be due to mergers, but most frequently, credit unions change names for one of these three reasons:

1. The credit union’s primary sponsor has disappeared, or dwindled to such a point that it can no longer sustain membership.
2. The credit union feels its name is geographically limiting and/or exclusive to certain types of people (e.g., teachers).
3. The credit union can no longer use another organization’s brand name. This is typically triggered by a request from the primary sponsor’s lawyers, but sometimes by another financial institution asserting trademark rights.

From this year’s new names:

• 11 credit unions included the word “Community”: Arlington Community, Champion Community, Community, Community Driven, Memberfocus Commmunity, My Community, NMTW Community, Prestige Community, Total Community, Valley One Community and Vue Community.
• 7 reduced their names to acronyms: CEFCU, CSE, MaPS, MCT, ME/CU, NMTW and USE.
• 7 are coined names: Altana, Aventa, Cinfed, Genisys, Meritrust, TruStone and Vue Community.
• 3 use the number “one”: Alabama One, Metro 1 and Valley One Community.
• 3 credit unions ditched the word “First” in their name, while one put it in: University First.
• 2 credit unions used alphanumeric constructions: Med5 and Metro 1.

It might be time to update The Financial Brand’s list of The Top 50 Most Distinctive Credit Union Names. Which ones do you think belong in the list?

Further Reading: Anyone in the financial marketing arena should know “How to Look Up a Financial Trademark in 10 Easy Steps.” And here are some of other stories about credit union name changes as reported here at The Financial Brand:

• The do’s and don’ts of CU acronyms
• The ‘Community Credit Union’ fallacy
• The most common words in credit union names
• What does ‘Federal’ do for FCUs?
• From “America’s who?” to “ACU who?”
• Advanta forces Avanta to become ‘Altana’
• Credit union picks ‘Wildfire’ as new name
• Two credit unions merge to create ‘Genisys’
• Credit union completes transformation to ‘Centric’
• Credit union picks ‘Aventa’ as new moniker

Also, please contact The Financial Brand for your copy of “The Credit Union Guide to The Name Change Decision,” a comprehensive, 33-page analysis of the strategic renaming issues that apply to any financial institution considering a name change.

New Name	Former Name	Assets
Access of Louisiana	Olin Employees L.C.	23,957,101
Aero	Honeywell Aerospace	188,728,340
Air Line Pilots Association	ALPA	173,653,482
Alabama One	The Credit Union of Alabama	555,068,560
Aloha	Aloha Airlines	27,732,128
Altana	Avanta	194,173,497
Arlington Community	Arlington Virginia	184,221,737
Aspire	FAA Eastern Region	182,560,814
Aventa	Colorado Springs	130,716,494
Best Reward	Reward One	105,868,976
Bridgeway	DOT	59,581,748
Cal State C U Of The North Bay	Cal State Central	100,616,334
CEFCU	Citizens Equity First	4,146,031,206
Centric	Forest Kraft	85,365,635
Champion Community	Champion Alabama Employees	39,209,042
Chief Financial	Chief Pontiac	106,449,575
Cinfed	Cin Fed Employees	281,639,448
Community	Community Educators	340,742,774
Community Driven	M P G Community	56,461,073
Corner Post	Wilkes-Barre Postal	54,501,638
CSE	Canton School Employees	109,971,421
Delta Schools	Antioch Schools	28,862,560
Eastside Family	Leo XIII K C	26,502,742
Encompass	Steel Parts	98,330,842
Encore	UOP	32,644,401
Extra	Metro	205,076,871
FocalPoint	NPG Employees	51,755,158
Fox Valley	Aurora Burlington	20,623,581
Freedom Of Maryland	Freedom	226,247,620
Genisys	USA	1,298,131,823
Greater Springfield	Springfield Mass. Municipal Em	112,721,214
HeritageWest	Tooele	300,895,668
Hidden River	Schuylkill County School Emplo	105,483,954
Hoosier Hills	Spencer County Co-op	317,252,013
Independence Parkway	Soltex	24,009,758
Magnify	Community First	102,731,437
Main Street Financial	LA DOTD	107,610,630
MaPS	Marion and Polk Schools	349,164,166
MCT	Montgomery County Teachers	414,626,807
ME/CU	Municipal Employees Credit Uni	98,623,759
Med5	Rapid City Medical	33,500,879
Media Members	Phil. Inquirer & Daily News Emp.	40,100,157
Memberfocus Community	Dearborn Schools	82,760,898
Meridian	Ottumwa School Employees	26,650,365
Meritrust	Boeing Wichita	637,647,382
Metro 1	First Metropolitan	198,627,458
Milestone	Birmingham Post Office	21,695,864
My Community	Midland Community	233,477,847
NMTW Community	Northern Mass. Telephone Workers	449,007,906
Piedmont Advantage	Piedmont Aviation	238,320,389
Plus	IBEW Plus	116,599,262
Premier Financial	La-Tec	63,698,302
Prestige Community	Galleria	55,320,326
Puget Sound	Eastside	32,886,521
Secured Advantage	Cryovac	71,737,179
Security	Lapeer County Community	359,181,006
SharePoint	Retail Employees	171,739,726
South Central	South Central State Employees	47,795,522
South Texas Area Resources	STAR	39,085,576
Southwest Michigan	Kalamazoo District Bell	70,511,587
Summit	Great Wisconsin	1,362,357,219
Texas Plains	Plains Bell	26,704,814
The Partnership	FDIC	107,252,220
Total Community	Taylor Community	45,034,035
Tri-rivers	Montgomery Teachers	21,909,357
Trust	Intrust	33,301,665
TruStone Financial	Teacher	623,004,532
Union Yes	Building Trades	58,857,008
University First	University Of Utah	550,434,216
USE	U. S. Employees	73,361,048
Utah Heritage	Moroni Feed	40,076,421
Valley One Community	Numerca Community	29,529,870
Veritas	Nissan	40,863,807
Vue Community	St. Alexius Community	29,128,239
Wildfire	Communications Family	512,703,797

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Previous related stories from The Financial Brand:

• Wrap up of recent financial name changes
• ‘Alabama CU’ sues ‘The Credit Union of Alabama FCU’ over name
• Brunswick Employees to become ‘Port City Credit Union’
• A look at name changes around the financial industry

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