🔒Credit unions, community banks rebrand, merge to survive in the digital age

For credit unions and banks in the post-pandemic world, the name of the game is differentiation.

Financial institutions that want to grow believe the key is to stand out from the competition. That could mean rebranding, or merging with a competitor.

Just in the past year:

• Savings Bank of Danbury rebranded to Ives Bank, honoring the family that founded it in 1849, with bank officials saying the change positions it for future growth in a potentially larger geographic footprint.
• Guilford Savings Bank (GSB) is merging with Norwich-based Eastern Connecticut Savings Bank. Once the deal is complete, the combined organization will rebrand as Ascend Bank to “broaden its reach, attract new clients, and remain strong in an increasingly competitive environment.”

And then there’s Middletown-based Seasons Federal Credit Union, which recently rebranded to Ellafi and announced a shift in focus to women customers.

“One of the things that I personally wanted to do is to reinvent our credit union for the next generation,” said Ellafi CEO Keith Wiemert.

He said he wasn’t sure how to do that, but two of the credit union’s senior vice presidents came up with the idea.

“They put their heads together and thought about a lot of different … ways we could try to distinguish ourselves so that we could be viable moving into the future,” Wiemert said.

The name Ellafi, which was developed with Wilton-based Grayfound Design, is a combination of “Ella,” or woman in Spanish, and “fi” for “financial institution.”

Ellafi is hardly alone in seeking a way to distinguish itself to grow and survive. Over the last two decades, Connecticut has lost more than half of its credit unions — there are now 71 remaining compared to 160 in 2004 — mostly through mergers, as the not-for-profit cooperatives seek to gain scale amid increasing costs and regulations.

James Dowd, chief creative officer for Cheshire-based marketing firm Rebellion Group, said many banks and credit unions want to differentiate themselves.

“There’s been a large trend in recent years of the community banks rebranding in their space as a way to kind of step away from the past notion of what a local community bank was,” Dowd said.

While locals may know a community bank’s name, some smaller lenders lack technology and are unable to provide “the digital experience and the reach and the access that people look for,” he said. “So, they’re looking to move past the past and into a digital future, but also to grow.”

‘The bar keeps moving’

Wiemert has been CEO of Seasons/Ellafi for nearly 30 years.

“We have been around for 90 years,” he said. “We are still considered a small credit union, even at $175 million” in assets.

“When I started with the credit union, we were $30 million,” Wiemert added. “When it hit $100 million, I thought we had made it. But the bar keeps moving in terms of what a ‘small credit union’ is, and so we’re still considered a small credit union.”

That’s what prompted him to consider changing his credit union’s focus, especially something as novel as catering to women customers — a unique niche both in Connecticut and nationwide.

“I think with this new direction through Ellafi, by having a woman-focused credit union, we can provide some unique services to the community,” Wiemert said. “We already know from some of the surveys we’ve done, and the response we’ve been getting from the community, that people are excited about it.”

There’s also a business opportunity, of course. Over the next decade, $30 trillion in U.S. wealth is expected to be transferred to younger women, according to a March 2024 report by Bank of America Global Research.

What’s interesting about the focus on women is that it doesn’t require any change to the credit union’s federal charter. Wiemert noted the charter allows Ellafi to operate in Middlesex County and nine bordering towns in New Haven County.

“If you follow credit unions in the state of Connecticut, many of them have expanded to multiple counties,” he said. “Many now have three, some even have four counties. For us, specifically, Middlesex County only has about a population of 250,000,” while New Haven and Hartford counties have about 1 million each.

Adding all of New Haven County to its charter would be one way to expand its clientele, but Wiemert says Ellafi has not made any decisions on that yet.

“We are exploring a whole bunch of possibilities,” he said.

Survey says

Ellafi has already developed several products and services with women in mind.

They are the result of a survey conducted by Spectrum Associates, a Wallingford-based, women-owned market research firm. The survey asked women what they want from a financial institution.

“I think the top three things that came out of those surveys were retirement planning, financial counseling and a better way to save money,” Wiemert said.

In response, Ellafi developed Cash Back Checking, an account linked to a debit card that offers up to 2% cash back based on the number of times per month the card is used. It also created an interest-bearing checking account that offers a refund of up to $20 per month on fees incurred at non-Ellafi ATMs.

Then there’s Wellness Plus, a financial-management tool that helps customers identify their goals and track their progress.

Wiemert stresses these programs, as well as others being developed, are not exclusively for women.

“It’s not just for women, but for the other people in their lives — husbands, sons, brothers,” he said. “But we do feel like it’s important to focus on women just because of their role.”

He said research shows that women will be “more of the financial decision-makers in relationships, and a lot of women are heading a single-parent household. So, they need assistance in doing all of these things.”

Ellafi also supports local women’s community organizations, including Girls Inc. of Central Connecticut and New Horizons Domestic Violence Center in Middletown.

The credit union is also committed, Wiemert said, to diversifying its volunteer board of directors and supervisory committee, which currently are male dominated.

“Their current makeup does not reflect our existing community, or the community that we want to serve,” he said.

To address that, the board plans to add “associate” members, who won’t have voting power but can attend meetings to learn the process, and who would be eligible to join the board when a position opens.

Ellafi may also invite women to advise the board on women’s issues, he said.

‘Digital era’

Dowd, of Rebellion Group, said that while Ellafi’s decision to focus on women has merit, most banks and credit unions his firm has worked with want to appeal to a younger generation.

Rebellion has been working with GSB and Eastern Connecticut Savings Bank on their planned rebranding to Ascend Bank.

They are joining forces with the intent of growing into a regional lender, he said. Combined, Ascend will be a $1.4 billion bank that offers commercial, business, personal and digital banking services to 25,000 clients.

But they also chose to invest more in their “digital experience,” Dowd said.

“They were looking for a new brand to express that in a way, to engage new customers, but also retain the old ones,” Dowd said. “That was the challenge they brought to us.”

He said the typical customer wants a local bank that knows them by name, but also has strong digital offerings.

“We’re in the digital era,” he said. “We’re post-COVID. We have a different banking experience, a different banking expectation. … The new brands either understand that and try to understand the modern consumer, or they don’t.”