South Florida credit unions plan to merge

South Florida’s Tropical Financial Credit Union and Financial Federal Credit Union plan to merge, according to a letter of intent signed by both institutions’ boards of directors. If the transaction goes through, Financial Federal’s members would become Tropical Financial members.

The much larger Tropical Financial, a Miramar-based financial institution, has $650 million in assets and 54,000 members in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and six other southeastern Florida counties. Miami-based Financial Federal has about $50 million in assets and its 6,500 members are primarily Miami Herald, Macy’s, Miami Herald and Office Depot employees in South Florida and New York, and Kansas City Star employees in Kansas City, Missouri.

Once they merge, Tropical Financial would have assets exceeding $700 million and would serve more than 60,000 members. “By combining the two institutions, both memberships will benefit from higher savings rates, lower loan rates and lower service fees that are the hallmark of our cooperative structure.”said Richard Helber, Tropical Financial’s president and CEO.

The merger must be approved by Financial Federal members and by credit union regulators but is expected to close mid-year.

This story was originally published March 15, 2017 at 1:16 PM with the headline "South Florida credit unions plan to merge."