Seventy-seven current VACORP credit unions have told Mid-Atlantic Corporate Credit Union CEO Jay Murray that they will put capital into Mid-Atlantic and become full members after the merger between the two corporate CUs.

Murray will remain on as CEO of Mid-Atlantic after the merger. He announced the member vote approving the merger Tuesday and said he hoped other VACORP member CUs would do the same. “I hope we will get more,” said Murray, who indicated Lynchburg, Virg.-based VACORP has a membership around 165.

Middletown, Penn-based Mid-Atlantic's present member count is around 700.

Murray confirmed that VACORP members seeking to join Mid-Atlantic will be required to put up capital, in accordance with Mid-Alantic's tiered capitalization formula, where higher contributions win lower prices for services.

The merger won formal approval from NCUA in October. It is slated to become official February 4, 2012, a date well behind the schedule indicated when merger plans were announced in December 2010. Murray indicated that staffing shortages at NCUA – “their resources are stretched” – had impacted the speed of the required reviews. “That delayed our merger,” said Murray.

In a wide ranging interview, Murray indicated that Mid-Atlantic had not pursued a possible acquisition of Western Bridge because, said Murray, he sees the role of Mid-Atlantic best fulfilled where it has representatives on the ground which, roughly, correlates with the mid-Atlantic region. He added: “We have looked at other mergers and will look at more but our decision will be made on a case by case basis.”

“The corporates industry is shrinking,” added Murray, “because the number of natural person credit unions is. This is a reality for all corporates today.”