75 Interesting Credit Union Name Changes in 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?

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.