North Carolina’s Marine FCU Reaches $1 Billion in Assets
The 65-year-old CU’s asset growth has been on an upward trajectory toward $1 billion for the past five years.
Marine Federal Credit Union in Jacksonville, N.C., celebrated a major milestone last month – the credit union’s surpassing of $1 billion in assets.
On Monday, Oct. 15, Marine’s more than 250 employees, Board members and Supervisory Committee members along with military and government dignitaries gathered to mark the achievement. According to Marine’s announcement, the credit union’s story began on April 20, 1959 when eight men put in a request with the Bureau of Federal Credit Unions to create a federal credit union that would serve the military, Department of Defense employees and their families aboard Marine Corp Base Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville.
The founders’ request was approved on April 24, 1959, and the credit union’s first official office/branch opened in a warehouse aboard Camp Lejeune. It was heated by a pot-bellied stove and secured by a chicken wire fence, according to Marine. The credit union now serves 81,525 members from 12 branches in North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina, plus runs a digital branch.
“It took us 65 years to parlay $40 into $1,000,000,000 dollars at the end of August,” Marine Board of Directors Chairman Chuck Collins stated.
Marine’s asset growth has been on an upward trajectory over the past five years, according to its Call Reports filed with the NCUA. As of Sept. 30, 2019, Marine had assets of $721.5 million, which grew to $795.5 million by the same date in 2020, and then to $886.5 million by the same date in 2021, $929.4 million in 2022 and $956.1 million in 2023. That growth followed a drop in assets from $721.5 million to $712.4 million from Sept. 30, 2014 to Sept. 30, 2015, and a four-year time period when assets teetered between $720.4 million and $721.5 million from Sept. 30, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2019.