Kootenay Savings Credit Union

Infobox_Company
company_name = Kootenay Savings
company_type = Credit Union
foundation =Trail, British Columbia, Canada , 1969
location = Trail, British Columbia
key_people = Brent Tremblay - President & CEO
industry = Financial Institution
products = Financial services
num_employees = 250
homepage = http://www.kscu.com/

Kootenay Savings Credit Union is the largest credit union in the Southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada.

Kootenay Savings is one of the larger credit unions in Canada with over 40000 members as of January 2007 and $1.2 billion in assets under administration.

As of May 2007, the organization had 13 branches throughout the interior of British Columbia, mostly around the major centres of Trail, Castlegar and Invermere. Its subsidiaries include Kootenay Savings MoneyWorks as well as a jointly-owned Insurance group called Kootenay Insurance Services, a company formed through the cooperation of Nelson and District Credit Union and East Kootenay Community Credit Union.

In April 2007, Kootenay Savings' Annual Report parodied Wikipedia and other online communities such as Flickr and MySpace to show how community-run organizations succeed.

History

Kootenay Savings was formed on January 1 1969 by the amalgamation of three thriving credit unions in Trail, Fruitvale and Castlegar, offering a spectrum of financial services to the three communities.

The amalgamation of the three credit unions marked the first of its kind in British Columbia. Although amalgamations were not new to the credit union system, they usually came about through smaller credit unions with limited services and facilities joining larger more sophisticated operations. This was the first time three successful credit unions each with a broad range of services joined together to form a single unit.

Canadians have the largest per capita membership in credit unions, with over 10 million members (30% of the population).

Awards

Kootenay Savings has won numerous awards including the Marketing Association for Credit Unions [http://macu.ca] AIME Award for its Annual Reports and successful Flexible Choice Mortgage campaigns.

References

* Kootenay Savings 2006 Annual Report, https://www.kscu.com/SharedContent/documents/KS_ar06_full.pdf
* Kootenay Savings history, https://www.kscu.com/Personal/AboutUs/
* Canada's Credit Unions and Caisses Populaires, http://www.fin.gc.ca/toce/2003/ccu_e.html
* Credit Union Facts, Credit Union Central of Canada: http://www.cucentral.ca/Private/cu_facts/index.htm