Two CUs Rebrand in Effort to Clear Up Eligibility Confusion
A CU official hopes people "will realize that we are trying to have a more inclusive member base within our communities.”
St. Helens, Oregon-based St. Helens Community Credit Union will officially become InRoads Credit Union on December 10, and Duncan, Oklahoma-based Halliburton Employees’ Federal Credit Union became Endurance Federal Credit Union effective October 1, the credit unions announced.
Both credit unions said part of the reason for their name changes was to address confusion about who could join.
“The Halliburton EFCU leadership team conducted extensive research with its members and nonmembers to determine how the name was perceived in the community, as well as how a new name would help future growth. During the research, the Halliburton EFCU team learned that the Halliburton Employees’ Federal Credit Union name led our communities to believe that they had to be employed with Halliburton in order to join,” the credit union said in its announcement.
“This is far from the truth and we have high hopes that with the name change people will realize that we are trying to have a more inclusive member base within our communities,” Endurance CEO and President Chris Bower added.
InRoads, formerly St. Helens Community Credit Union, noted similar concerns.
“To ensure we were moving in the right direction, as part of this process we sought the opinions and insights of members and potential members alike. We asked them to describe areas where we excel and how we could do better. What we learned in our research helped influence the new name. We found that potential members living outside of St. Helens were confused about their eligibility for membership based on our current name,” it said on its FAQ page about the rebranding.
InRoads said it reviewed over 25 other names during the rebranding process.
InRoads has $223 million in assets and about 16,000 members. Endurance has $148 million in assets; it also has about 16,000 members.
Endurance, formerly Halliburton Employees’ Federal Credit Union, was chartered in 1960 as Duncan Industrial Services Credit Union. It became Halliburton Employees’ Federal Credit Union in 1969.
Rebranding is not new to the credit union industry. Lone Tree, Colo.-based Public Service Credit Union became Canvas Credit Union earlier this year, and Los Alamitos, Calif.-based Southland Credit Union unveiled a brand-new logo and tagline in September — its first rebranding effort in 15 years. Canvas has $2.4 billion in assets and about 241,000 members; Southland has $749 million in assets and about 59,000 members.