The approximately 26,500 members of the Salt Lake Credit Union will be asked to approve the merger by vote on Wednesday.

"We've done a lot of surveys over the years asking our members what we could do to serve them better," said spokeswoman Clare Collard. "What we heard was they wanted additional branches, additional services and additional access to ATMs."

Collard said for a credit union the size of the SLCU - with approximately $250 million in assets versus Mountain America's $2.4 billion - it was a challenge to provide the continuing improvement in services that members expected.

"We have 10 branches and Mountain America has more than 50 branches," Collard said. "So just from that perspective alone our members will benefit by having more branch locations that they will be able to use."

The 10 SLCU branches throughout the Salt Lake Valley will continue operations as usual, and all personnel will keep their jobs, said Jodi Jones, spokeswoman for Mountain America Credit Union.

Orla Beth Peck, supervisor of credit unions at the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, said the merger request is under review. "This is a voluntary merger and in most cases [like that] we will approve [the combination] as long as that is what the members want."

She said there is a trend toward mergers in the credit union industry as smaller credit unions struggle to provide an expanding array of services. "A lot of smaller credit unions find that adding new services is an expensive undertaking," said Peck. "And sometimes just finding someone with the expertise they need is a challenge."

In Utah, the most recent merger occurred late last year when the Balance Rock Credit Union in Helper, with assets of $7.6 million, merged with Utah Power Credit Union, which had assets of $249 million.

Mountain America Credit Union's roots began in the mid 1930s as the credit union for Utah Telephone workers.

Today, it has 43 branches throughout Utah, three in Nevada, two in New Mexico and one in Phoenix.

Its last major deal was a merger last year with the tiny SP Sparks Employees Credit Union in Sparks, Nev.

Before that, in 2003, Mountain America took over troubled Utah Copper Employees Credit Union. It agreed to take over the Copperton credit union at the request of the National Credit Union Administration.

steve@sltrib.com

lesley@sltrib.com