The Pennsylvania State Employee Credit Union (PSECU) doesn’t often open physical locations.
When it came to State College, the organization felt it needed to go the extra mile to connect with the community.
The credit union, which boasts a membership of more than 425,000 people and $4 billion in assets, has opened a brick and mortar financial office on College Avenue, officially cutting the ribbon Monday.
State representative Kerry Benninghoff and state senator Jake Corman both sent members of their offices to ribbon cutting, and they were joined by Centre County commissioner Michael Pipe. Mayor Elizabeth Goreham was also at the event, and helped hold the shears.
“In this facility they’ll be helpful to us in broadening the financial offerings we have in the community,” says Vern Squier, president of the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County. “We’re really proud of this. If you didn’t get to see, we’ve come a long way since we first swung some sledgehammers here.”
The sleek College Avenue storefront is a rare one for the PSECU, which only has a handful of physical locations to its name. The credit union is focused on moving into college towns.
“We’re really excited about opening up here and starting to serve the financial needs of the student population and the general population here,” says PSECU president Greg Smith. “This has really been a labor of love for us. We’ve wanted to come to State College for a number of years, and we were just waiting for the right opportunity to come along and we jumped on it.”
The PSECU already has 19,000 members in Centre County, though until now those members didn’t have the luxury of a physical banking location. The union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative that was founded over 80 years ago by 22 state employees. Back then, the union had just $90. While it has grown through the years, it sticks to its non-profit roots.
“I want to recognize that they’ve all been very nice in relating to our community and our team,” Squier says. “This kind of investment is very important to us here in Centre County. We hope others will take note and repeat it.”
The credit union’s opening in State College marks its 17th location at a college, though the other 16 are located on university campuses. Smith says the PSECU is excited to be growing larger.
“We have a presence here already and we think this is really going to strengthen that,” Smith says. “I want to thank the whole community of State College. They’ve been really welcoming to us and we already feel at home.”
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