EIGHTY YEARS YOUNG
North Sydney Credit Union celebrates 80th anniversary in business
North Sydney Credit Union celebrates milestone.
Patricia Leyte has fond memories of her early days at the North Sydney Credit Union.
“Everything was manual, there were no computers in those days,” said Leyte. “Even loan payments, we would have to get on a calculator and we would have to calculate the number of days you made payments and what your rate was, and we would calculate that all out.”
Leyte has been working at the North Sydney location for 30 years and has held the general manager position for the last 27 years.
“When I started at the credit union we were downtown (on Commercial Street),” she said. “We joke about (those days) because most of my employees weren’t here back then — at the end of the month we would have tapes out of the adding machine and you literally could have paved the street with them.”
The North Sydney Credit Union was organized on Oct. 18, 1937 and will celebrate its 80th anniversary next week at its annual general meeting.
“We’re grown significantly over the years,” said Leyte. “Your first 50 years it’s very difficult to grow, you’re small, you’re just starting, but once you start to grow and you’re in a position to employ additional people or you’re able to take on various products and services, your ability to grow doubles and triples.”
The credit union, locally owned and operated by a board of directors, moved to its current location on King Street about 18 years ago. Since the move, Leyte believes the business has grown 150 per cent versus its first 62 years in the community.
“Our core founding principles are honesty and fairness and our employees take those principles very seriously — we’re proud of what we do,” said Leyte.
“When you open an account at the credit union you become a member, you’re not just an account holder.”
Nationally, credit unions have been first to market a number of products including mobile cheque imaging and full-service ATMs.
According to Leyte, credit unions, which are not profit driven, return four per cent of profits back to local communities, significantly higher than the national standard of one per cent.
“It’s about what’s in your best interest, it may not be ours,” said Leyte. “Decisions are not being made by shareholders that are removed from your community — we’re here for you.”
The North Sydney location, which provides volunteers and helps with various community projects, has eight employees and more than 1,800 members to date.
Leyte said seeing the credit union grow has been the most memorable moment for her over the past 30 years.
“When I started we had two people — now we have eight — so we’re clearly creating good, solid employment in our community and we’re always fair in those aspects,” she said.
“What gives me the greatest pleasure is the things that the credit union does to help support the community through various projects — if we identify a need we like to try to get involved in some way.”
According to the Canadian Credit Union Association, today, there are more than 300 credit unions nationwide, serving more than 5.5 million members and one in five Canadians are credit union members.
In Atlantic Canada, there are 41 communities where the credit union is the only financial institution that supports the community, 20 of those are located in Nova Scotia.
“When other financial institutions are pulling out of communities that they may not have seen to be as profitable, credit unions have moved in,” said Leyte. “Our ultimate goal for credit union members is to have them thrive financially.”
The North Sydney Credit Union is open Monday to Thursday 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and Friday 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. The location also has a 24-hour ATM machine available.
“Congratulations to our membership on our 80th anniversary we thank you and we sincerely thank our members for their support,” said Leyte. “They’re dealing with us by choice, they made a decision
“When other financial institutions are pulling out of communities that they may not have seen to be as profitable, credit unions have moved in. Our ultimate goal for credit union members is to have them thrive financially.”
General manager Patricia Leyte
to come and we hope they love us.”
The annual general meeting of the North Sydney Credit Union will take place on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the King Street location.
For more information contact the credit union at 902794-2535.