The $1.8 billion HarborOne Credit Union outlined new details this week on its proposed conversion to a mutual savings bank, telling its 150,000 members to expect ballots by mail beginning sometime this summer.
In an article in the Brockton Enterprise News, James Blake, president/CEO of the Brockton, Mass., credit union, urged members to vote on the conversion plan first announced Feb. 16, adding he hoped they would be in favor.
The credit union's board approved the proposed conversion on March 21.
"We've gotten a very positive response from our membership so far," Blake told the publication. "I'm confident that members will see this as a really good thing for us to do and a really good opportunity."
He said if the switch is approved by the membership and regulators, HarborOne could hire new employees "immediately to its consumer, commercial and mortgage lending areas," said the Enterprise News.
Blake had told Boston area media in February that HarborOne could expand into Boston with new branches, expand loan capacity as it adds new capital and flexibility under the state's specialized mutual co-op charter.
Blake, a former chairman of the Massachusetts Credit Union League and once a firm credit union advocate, said the existing credit union structure and regulatory limits inhibited growth.
Among other benefits "a bank conversion would also allow HarborOne to do business with the City of Brockton to take municipal deposits," Blake declared in the Enterprise News article.
Blake has not returned calls from Credit Union Times for comment.
In the newspaper article this week, Blake said the Brockton credit union would immediately open several new branches in metro Boston. He did not specify where.
Members "can receive the ballots, which will be in English, only through the mail," Blake said. He said a series of informational meetings about the proposed change would be held over the summer and that if approved by members, the conversion would be complete by the end of the year.
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