REACH 2026 opens in Palm Desert on November 2 with something new: four learning tracks, and one of them is called Growth and Impact. The name is a fair summary of what credit union leaders say is on their minds. New member growth is now a top-three concern for 62 percent of credit union executives, up from 41 percent three years earlier. The same research describes a change in what community means to the people a credit union hopes to serve. It is less a matter of where they live than of what they value and how they live.
Growth now means becoming part of a community, and that requires more than a field of membership. It requires a place of belonging in that community, and the branch is that place. It is the part of a growth strategy a community can see and walk into.
Branches Remain Credit Unions' Introduction to Communities
Most of what gets proposed for growth is digital, and the industry's own priorities bear that out: improving digital member engagement is the top strategy credit unions name for the year ahead. In the same survey, 62 percent plan to open new branches and only 18 percent expect to close any. The two facts fit together. A mobile app serves the members a credit union already has, wherever they happen to be. A branch gives a credit union a physical presence in a new market, creating opportunities for the relationships that drive long-term membership growth.
Consumers still anchor their financial relationships in institutions with a local, tangible presence, and the youngest members, the ones every credit union is trying to reach, still come in person to open an account and to make their biggest financial decisions. Digital has crowded the branch to the edge of the growth conversation. It belongs at the center, because of all the growth decisions a credit union will make this year, the branch is the one that stands in the community it was made for.
Purpose-informed Size and Layout
Deciding where to grow settles the location. What the branch is meant to accomplish there settles nearly everything else. A branch that opens up access in an underserved part of town has a different job than one meant to reach young professionals moving into a neighborhood no competitor has noticed, and that job determines how large the branch is, whether it has a drive-thru or a community room, how it is staffed, and how the interior is arranged for the conversations the credit union most wants to have there.
New Alliance Federal Credit Union faced the second situation. As jobs moved toward Pittsburgh, the younger demographic went with them, and growth in the credit union's existing market stalled. The answer was a branch in Lawrenceville, a historic neighborhood filling with young families and tech workers that no other institution had claimed.
Momentum worked with New Alliance to purchase and renovate a historic row house there into a relationship-driven branch with a personal, tellerless staffing model. The building was chosen for the people the credit union went there to reach, and the staffing model was chosen for the same reason.
What the building says from the road
A branch speaks before anyone walks in. From the road, the building is the credit union's brand standing in the community, and it has two things to say at once: this is who we are, and we belong here. “This is who we are” comes from an exterior that carries the same identity and experience a member will find inside, so the building reads as the credit union and not as a generic financial office.
“We belong here” comes from fitting the street it sits on through materials, scale, and regional character. A branch that does both stands out and fits in at the same time, which is exactly what a credit union entering a new community needs it to do. In Lawrenceville, that meant a restored storefront the neighborhood already recognized as its own. Window placement and view corridors finish the job by connecting the interior to its surroundings, so the unique locale the credit union came to serve is visible from inside the branch.
Growth with Local Character
For Sandia Area Federal Credit Union, growth means expanding access to financial services in communities throughout the Albuquerque area. Its next two branches, in Rio Rancho and South Valley, will be the first new construction branches built around the member experience model Momentum developed with Sandia Area.
The model gives every branch the same welcoming experience while letting each one reflect the needs and character of its own neighborhood. Inside, open spaces take the place of the teller line and enclosed offices, so a conversation about homeownership, business lending, or financial planning happens sitting down together. The Rio Rancho branch adds a community room, open outside branch hours for financial education, local organizations, and small businesses. And both are designed to show off what is great about where they are, with natural light and windows placed to put the Sandia Mountains in view. That is how a building captures the best of a place, and it is a large part of how a credit union comes to belong there.
Where Growth Goes from Here
The Growth and Impact sessions at REACH will explore how credit unions can reach younger members and connect with evolving communities. For Momentum, the exciting part is seeing what those ambitions can become. The next generation of branches will look less like one another and more like expressions of the unique character of their surroundings—and that is the part of growth we are privileged to help build.
If your credit union is thinking about where it grows next, we would like to think it through with you at REACH. Find President Mark Alguard and Director of Preconstruction Andrew Brown at Momentum booth 126, November 2–5.