The process began in August, but was announced this week. The merger will be completed the first week of November.

In what will be their first branch incursion into the Spokane area, GESA Credit Union officials announced Tuesday Northland Credit Union has officially merged with the Tri-Cities based GESA.

Northland is a small community credit union located in North Spokane, on the Newport Highway not far from the Country Homes and Mead areas. The credit union has, according to the website creditunionaccess.com, some 1957 members and assets of $15 million dollars. It's been in operation for 59 years.

As an independent credit union, Northland officials said it was becoming increasingly difficult "in a time of increased regulatory burdens in an unpredictable financial world," it has become more and more difficult for a small credit union to survive.

Northland officials said merging with GESA will provide opportunities for it's members that were not available previously.  The merger process began  August 1st, and will be completed by November 2 with a systems merger. An election of whether to merge with GESA was held for Northland members in May of this year.

According to officials, the NCU employees will become GESA workers as of that date, and this will be GESA's first Spokane-based branch.

This is the latest in a series of several smaller credit unions in the Northwest merging with larger operations such as GESA and HAPO Credit Union.

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