IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO OUR MEMBERS:
Dear Valued Members,
As your neighborhood credit union, we are proud to serve the Niagara and Erie County communities, offering products and services needed to help members achieve their dreams no matter how big or small. There are so many challenging issues facing our community today. A faltering economy, record inflation, gas prices at an astronomical high, the cost of goods and services on an upward spiral, and to top it off, COVID cases on the rise again.
For over eighty years, the Credit Union has maintained a fiscally conservative budget, leading to a strong bottom line and a capital ratio in the double digits. However, like so many other small businesses, we are now feeling the pinch of high inflation, low investment rates, and a much smaller return on loans. We were there for our members during the pandemic when they needed us most and we were there for our employees, keeping them employed at their normal hours, even though we were forced to reduce operations due to COVID. No one had a crystal ball to tell us the pandemic would still be around two years later, and no one was prepared for the impact it had financially.
For the last two years, we have been working hard to keep costs down while maintaining a high rate of service to our members. We opened our Amherst branch in Fall 2018 with the expectation of hosting special events at that location and increasing our membership and loan volume. The pandemic unfortunately halted those plans. The now high cost of supplies, equipment, and utilities has caused us to re-consider operating two locations. We know how important it is for our members to have reliable products and services to help with their financial well-being and it’s crucial to us to maintain this reliability and still be profitable. We also know how important it is to bring back dividend earnings to our membership. It is clear to us that a brick-and-mortar location in Amherst is not a sustainable asset for us to keep.
Our Board of Directors has made the decision to permanently close the Amherst branch, effective immediately. We believe that operating only one brick-and-mortar location right now will allow us to consolidate our resources and focus more on recovery from the detrimental impact the pandemic has had on us.
As our member services system conversion approaches on June 1st, this decision will grant us the ability to extend our hours of operation to better serve our members. We will now be offering Saturday hours at our one and only location on Erie Avenue in North Tonawanda and will also be open until 5 pm on Fridays, starting in June. Please refer to our website for more information.
We continue to focus on the most important part of our mission statement as we make this change – serving our members' banking needs. Being there for you with the most up to date products and services we can offer is what we do, and we know that these changes will have a positive impact on us all!
Yours in Service,
Donna Wick
Chief Executive Officer
new hours at 1285 erie avenue starting june 11, 2022
Monday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
Tuesday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
Wednesday: 10:00am - 4:30pm
Thursday: 8:30am - 4:30pm
Friday: 8:30am - 5:00pm
Saturday: 9:00am - 12:00pm