How Strategic Partnerships Help Credit Unions Accelerate Growth
Credit unions can apply lessons from mergers and acquisitions to build strategic partnerships that support growth. Drawing on The Allied Angle podcast, Allied Solutions President Bill Gould and OnPath Credit Union President and CEO Jared Freeman explain the importance of solving a specific challenge, aligning organizational cultures, and preparing teams and technology for integration. OnPath’s mortgage capabilities illustrate how an acquisition can accelerate an existing strategy. The blog encourages leaders to define shared objectives and evaluate results against the relationship’s intended purpose.
Key Takeaways
- Start with a specific challenge. OnPath’s acquisition accelerated mortgage capabilities it was already developing. Defining the capability needed gives leaders a clearer basis for choosing an acquisition or strategic partnership and evaluating its value.
- Prepare people and systems for integration early. Cultural alignment, leadership readiness, and technology planning influence how organizations come together. Addressing these priorities helps teams understand their responsibilities and prepare for the work after closing.
- Define success around the relationship’s purpose. Each deal requires its own scorecard because growth figures alone cannot explain every outcome. Shared objectives help leaders assess whether a merger, acquisition, or partnership delivers its intended benefits.
Any leader who has been through a merger or acquisition knows the work goes well beyond combining brands or deciding who acquires whom. Leaders must determine how teams, systems, and priorities will come together, and what each organization stands to gain.
Recently on The Allied Angle podcast, Allied Solutions President Bill Gould and OnPath Credit Union President and CEO Jared Freeman reflected on their M&A experiences and challenged the idea of a “merger of equals.” Team dynamics, loan origination systems, core systems, and fields of membership can all change. Those changes bring opportunities, but they also require difficult trade-offs.
Every deal has its own scorecard, but the numbers don’t tell the whole story. Cultural priorities shape which trade-offs leaders are willing to make and what success ultimately looks like. These lessons also apply to strategic partnerships, where organizations must align people and capabilities around a shared purpose.
Beyond the Deal: What Makes M&A Work
Culture can be one of the hardest aspects of M&A to measure and one of the easiest to underestimate.
Reflecting on “Project Reunion,” Securian’s third attempt to acquire Allied Solutions, Gould described how integration planning and cultural alignment helped bring the organizations together:
“We spent a ton of time on the integration plans. We mapped every benefit, every client, every prospect, and how many regions we would have. We had a solid plan, a good strategic premise, and then the culture was really aligned. We had good plans for coming together, but it was culture that really made it work.”
Closing a deal is only the beginning. Creating lasting value requires a clear understanding of the challenge the combination is intended to solve.
For OnPath Credit Union, that challenge was accelerating its mortgage capabilities to better serve first-time homebuyers in Louisiana. Acquiring a community bank offered an opportunity to advance work already underway.
“They were doing all the things OnPath wanted to do, just about two years ahead. So [through M&A] we sped up the trajectory by two years.”
Freeman’s example illustrates a practical reason to pursue an acquisition: gaining capabilities that would take longer to build internally.
Preparing People and Systems for M&A
M&A requires a long-term commitment, clear priorities, and a leadership team prepared to guide the organization through change. That includes honest conversations about who wants to help lead the transition and what the future organization needs.
As the podcast discussion highlighted:
“Credit unions have a lot to learn from companies like Allied. Here in Credit Union Land, we like to hold onto people [...] because they are loyal, kind, smart and want to take care of the members. But how do we build the leadership team of the future, and how do we start now? The reality is not everyone wants to go through M&A.”
That preparation extends across four areas:
- People: Prioritize bringing teams together. Address misconceptions early, communicate openly with employees, and clarify how roles and responsibilities may change.
- Operations: Plan the transition from legal close to operational integration, with clear timelines and responsibilities.
- Technology: Board and member approval are important milestones, but connecting two institutions’ systems brings additional complexity, especially when data is already fragmented. Include technology integration in planning from the start.
- Products: Map how the deal will affect each organization’s products and define the tangible benefits the combination is intended to deliver.
The M&A Mindset: Building Stronger Partnerships
Apply the same discipline to strategic partnerships. Each partnership brings together different strengths, aligns teams around a common goal, and combines capabilities to accomplish something neither organization could achieve as effectively alone.
The scale may differ, but success still depends on clear objectives, cultural alignment, and deliberate integration.
Whether building, buying, investing, or partnering, start with the challenge you need to solve. Define the capabilities you need, prepare the people responsible for delivering them, and agree on how you will measure progress. Those decisions give the relationship a clear purpose and a practical foundation for growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should a credit union compare building a capability with acquiring it or finding a partner?
Start by defining the capability, the desired timeline, and the resources available. Compare how each option would address the need, including the work required to integrate teams and systems. OnPath’s example illustrates how an acquisition can accelerate capabilities already under development.
What should credit union leaders agree on before selecting a strategic partner?
Leaders should establish the problem the partnership will solve, each organization’s responsibilities, and the outcomes they expect. Discuss cultural priorities, technology requirements, and resource commitments early so both organizations understand what delivering those outcomes will require.
How can leaders assess cultural alignment before a merger or partnership?
Discuss how each organization makes decisions, communicates change, supports employees, and serves members. Ask for examples of how those priorities influence daily work. These conversations can reveal differences that leaders will need to address when bringing teams together.
What should employees hear during an M&A transition?
Employees need clear information about the purpose of the deal, what has been decided, and which questions remain open. Explain how responsibilities may change, where employees can raise concerns, and when they can expect further updates. Avoid presenting unresolved decisions as final.
What technology questions should leaders ask before committing to a deal?
Identify which systems must connect, where data is fragmented, and who will manage integration. Discuss the people, time, and outside support the work may require. Include these considerations in planning so technology responsibilities are understood before implementation begins.
What belongs on a credit union M&A or partnership scorecard?
Choose measures that reflect the original purpose of the relationship. Depending on the goal, examples could include capability launch dates, employee retention, product adoption, or member experience. Establish a starting point, assign responsibility for each measure, and agree on when progress will be reviewed.
How can credit unions apply M&A lessons to smaller vendor relationships?
Use the same planning discipline at a scale appropriate to the relationship. Define the capability the vendor will provide, identify the teams and systems involved, and agree on responsibilities and success measures. Clear expectations give both organizations a practical basis for evaluating progress.
