ORNL FCU 75 Years
education relationships with area schools, as well as a variety of charities and community-wide programs such as Habitat for Humanity. But in the closing days of a very eventful 2002, ORNL Federal Credit Union made what was probably its most historic announcement: the NCUA had unanimously approved a community charter for
Shown here is the East Knoxville Branch.
ORNL Federal Credit Union, permitting it to serve a sixteen-county area known as central East Tennessee. Anyone who lived, worked, worshiped, or attended school in this newly defined area could enjoy the benefits of membership. This allowed the credit union to extend its services to nearly 1.1 million area residents not previously qualified to join. The new charter also represented tremendous opportunities for the credit union to grow while remaining loyal to the high ideals and principles of people helping people that had guided ORNL FCU since 1948.
The transition to a community-chartered credit union became official as the new year got underway in 2003, ORNL Federal Credit Union’s fifty-fifth year of service. The change was immediate as it reached out to the sixteen-county community of central East Tennessee, offering all residents a new choice in financial services. The impact of this change was immediate and substantial. Over seventeen thousand residents joined ORNL FCU. This represented an average of over fourteen hundred new members each month.
To serve this new membership—particularly a highly populated area in Morristown and the surrounding Hamblen County—several branches opened throughout 2003. These included
Morristown, Halls, East Knoxville, and an on-site location at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the latter representing a return to the credit union’s roots. That year, the credit union also created Affinity Financial Group LLC, its first credit union service organization (CUSO) with intentions of offering mortgage, insurance, title, and realty services to its members. The first organization formed was Affinity Title Group, which received its first title order from ORNL FCU in September 2003.
Shown here is the Morristown Branch.
58 | 75 YEARS ORNL FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
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