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Email this5:50 pm
April 16, 2020
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For anyone who doesn't know yet, from https://www.sunovacu.ca/the-merger-vote-has-passed/ :
Your Sunova Credit Union Board of Directors is excited to announce a merger with Noventis and Access CUs.
Online voting took place January 25 to 27 and concluded at each organization’s Special Meeting of Members on January 27. At these meetings, a two-thirds majority vote in favour of amalgamating Access, Noventis, and Sunova was announced.
We are pleased to share that the resolution was passed with the following results:
In favour
Access Credit Union 76%
Noventis Credit Union 86%
Sunova Credit Union 74%
Does anyone know whether they quoted in the Members Meeting(s) the actual numbers of votes cast in each CU's ballot ? I'm curious whether the "turnout" was particularly high or low.
8:59 pm
October 21, 2013
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I agree, it would be very informative to know the voter turnout.
Noventis had the most to gain, so it's not surprising they voted most strongly in favour.
In my opinion, Sunova/Hubert had the most to lose, so it's also not surprising they had the lowest vote in favour.
Considering that it required a 66.67% "yes" vote, it wasn't exactly a slam dunk on the part of Sunova/Hubert members..
We've had our say. Now, they will have to convince us that it's worth sticking with Hubert in the longer term.
10:51 am
January 12, 2019
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christinad said
Not a surprise, the merger is going ahead, 75% in favour. (I attended the meeting)
As expected ⬆. But I'm surprised at the high percentages (Access: 76%, Noventis: 86% & Sunova: 74%) in favour ❗
As for what the future will bring to Hubert (Good or Bad) ... time will tell.
Meanwhile, life goes on 
- Dean
" Live Long, Healthy ... And Prosper! "
12:02 pm
October 21, 2013
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it might still have been a small perentage of Hubert or even Sunova members who voted in favour.
If 10% of members voted, and 75% of those voted in favour, that's 7.5% of members who voted in favour and a majority who didn't care, didn't bother, or couldn't decide..
The fact that they didn't tell us how many voted may be significant. If memory serves (and it may not), they have about 500 employees, who would likely mostly vote in favour as the deal appears to be good for employees. For all we know, that could have been how they secured the vote and knew they would. I simply don't know. The lack of transparency bothers me, but, then again, I haven't asked for details. The email they sent out about the results didn't even give the percentages.
7:21 pm
December 12, 2009
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Loonie said
I suppose that if I were a Sunova in-person member, I might find the idea of more branches attractive.
But I'm not and, even if I were, there is no guarantee those branches will survive. I voted No.Sunova members may not outweigh Hubert people. it really depends on how many bother to vote. If attendance at AGMs is any indicator, it could be very very low. They haven't really done much to promote voting.
My hope is that the majority of voters were Manitoba branch members.
Last I estimated a several years ago, I estimated Hubert Financial only had between 1,500-2,500 members. That's still sizable, in the context of Sunova Credit Union, and when you consider it's just a virtual branch (in terms of staff complement, though granted they do share the same premises as the Sunova contact centre). Tara's position as Managing Partner of Hubert Financial is equivalent to branch manager, as Managing Partner is what Sunova calls their branch managers. When Hubert started in 2010 or 2011, though, she was the Hubert supervisor (there was no Managing Partner), so that does show how much they've grown to warrant a higher paying managerial position.
But yes, I'm particularly interested to know how many members from each credit union voted. There is no minimum threshold required for this; only that two-thirds of those voting must vote in favour.
Cheers,
Doug
7:24 pm
December 12, 2009
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Loonie said
it might still have been a small perentage of Hubert or even Sunova members who voted in favour.
If 10% of members voted, and 75% of those voted in favour, that's 7.5% of members who voted in favour and a majority who didn't care, didn't bother, or couldn't decide..The fact that they didn't tell us how many voted may be significant. If memory serves (and it may not), they have about 500 employees, who would likely mostly vote in favour as the deal appears to be good for employees. For all we know, that could have been how they secured the vote and knew they would. I simply don't know. The lack of transparency bothers me, but, then again, I haven't asked for details. The email they sent out about the results didn't even give the percentages.
Exactly. At a recent Meridian Credit Union AGM a couple years ago, they had something like 5-7% voter turnout. That was considered high for a typical credit union AGM.
Coast Capital Savings' federal credit union continuance vote attracted one of the highest, if not the highest voter turnouts, with somewhere between 50-80% of their ~500,000 members (at the time) casting ballots.
But yes, credit unions are, generally, not known for transparency when it comes to breaking out vote results, sadly. 🙁
Cheers,
Doug
4:58 pm
April 16, 2020
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So I asked for, and received from both AccessCU and SunovaCU, some details on the voting turnout.
Notes :
- the numbers of members given below are taken from the slides in the Sunova Member's meeting on Jan 18th. To my understanding, the number of members is only a proxy for the number of eligible voters and not an exact or even close match, so it's not worth calculating actual turnout %ages based on membership - suffice to say that turnout was quite low (at least IMHO (:^)).
- the numbers of votes cast are quoted from an email response to my query to AccessCU.
- "%age in favour" are both from those emails and all other reports of results.
- the resulting calculated numbers of votes in favour are approximate because the "%age in favour" figures are given to whole %age.
| CU | Members | Votes cast | %age in favour | Votes in favour |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access | 92,000 | 3,394 | 76% | ~2,579 |
| Noventis | 28,000 | 941 | 86% | ~ 809 |
| Sunova | 49,700 | 3,016 | 74% | ~2,232 |
5:48 pm
April 6, 2013
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pcs said
…
- suffice to say that turnout was quite low (at least IMHO (:^)).
- the numbers of votes cast are quoted from an email response to my query to AccessCU.
…
The turnout was low!
According to the meeting minutes, the April 2021 Bank of Montreal annual general meeting had votes from over 48% of the shares:
ADDITIONAL PROCEDURES
The Chair reviewed additional procedures for the meeting. He then noted that the Bank’s Transfer Agent, Computershare, had informed him that over 315,345,690 votes had been cast or received by proxy from both registered and beneficial shareholders in respect of the matters of business before the meeting, which represented just over 48.7 per cent of the total outstanding shares eligible to be voted.
6:33 pm
October 21, 2013
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I don't think there is any realistic comparison with BMO. Major banks all have tons of institutional investors with large numbers of shares who vote in blocks. I don't imagine there are very many individuals who vote there either. Probably even fewer as their votes will not make tiddlywinks of difference.
As for Sunova, it's not surprising. The employees and their families would probably have been enough to swing the vote, given the turnout. A pity.
Sunova did have the highest voter turnout as percent of membership though, by far. I would like to think it's because Hubert members had more on the table, more members cared - and more to lose IMO. Maybe our online discussion helped.
Thanks to pcs for the report.
8:32 am
November 8, 2021
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On whether Access Credit Union will operate in Quebec come July 1, 2022, vague response from Accelerate Financial CSR:
"Thank you for your email. Accelerate Financial has not changed any of our account opening requirements and while the merge is still early stages Accelerate will continue to offer our accounts to Quebec residents."
8:48 am
February 7, 2019
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Had an online chat with Hubert CSR a few minutes ago ...
Me: "Sunova members are to get Account Packages October 2022. Is this still happening?"
Vanessa: "Hubert doesn't have account packages or charge service fees. The account package changes only affected Sunova members."
Me: "So what's the next step if any for Hubert members?"
Vanessa: "Nothing is changing with Hubert, it is staying as is."
| CGO |
10:05 am
January 12, 2019
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cgouimet said
. . .
Me: "So what's the next step if any for Hubert members?"
Vanessa: "Nothing is changing with Hubert, it is staying as is".
As most of us have suspected ⬆, for quite some time now.
Thanks for the confirmation,
- Dean
P.S.
Sidebar ...
I wonder what's going to happen with AcceleRate.
Will it stay 'as is' as well, or merged into Hubert ?
" Live Long, Healthy ... And Prosper! "
11:12 am
February 7, 2019
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Dean said
cgouimet said
. . .
Me: "So what's the next step if any for Hubert members?"
Vanessa: "Nothing is changing with Hubert, it is staying as is".
As most of us have suspected ⬆, for quite some time now.
Thanks for the confirmation,
Dean
P.S.
Sidebar ...
I wonder what's going to happen with AcceleRate.
Will it stay 'as is' as well, or merged into Hubert ?
I don't know about Accelerate but on the Access Sign-In (https://www.accesscu.ca/en/online-banking-sign-in), there's a button for each Sunova and Access but not their "digital-kids" Hubert and Accelerate. If nothing is happening to Hubert perhaps maybe that means nothing is happening to Accelerate ...
| CGO |
11:34 am
December 12, 2009
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cgouimet said
I don't know about Accelerate but on the Access Sign-In (https://www.accesscu.ca/en/online-banking-sign-in), there's a button for each Sunova and Access but not their "digital-kids" Hubert and Accelerate. If nothing is happening to Hubert perhaps maybe that means nothing is happening to Accelerate ...
The Noventis Credit Union core banking system and database is being merged with the Access Credit Union core banking system this month/December 2022. At that point, Noventis' MemberDirect online banking system will likely be merged with the Access' MemberDirect online banking system. The Sunova/Hubert migration is not taking place until the summer/next fall because they have used a custom, proprietary and in-house developed core banking system and online banking system. I expect they will be migrated to MemberDirect, one of the downsides of which will be the loss of Hubert's innovative paperless external bank account linking process. 🙁
In terms of AcceleRate Financial, it's possible they could maintain it, but why? It is an also-ran, with an estimated 400-1,000 current members. They never built the same size and scale of Hubert, Implicity, Achieva, and Outlook. They attract no more than 10-12 new members per year (and that's being generous). Their website screams 1990s/early 2000s, and that's after the brand refresh.
I suspect Hubert Financial will be retained as an Access digital banking brand, but one other possibility we have to prepare for is that the Happy Savings Account will be retained as an Access Credit Union digital only savings account, and they will consolidate their digital and branch-based deposit offerings under the Access brand. Remember, non-Manitoba residents have been able to open Access Credit Union accounts digitally even before the merger was announced.
Cheers,
Doug
2:24 pm
March 4, 2019
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Doug said
Hubert's innovative paperless external bank account linking process.
Was it Hubert that invented the account linking process? That's interesting
7:31 pm
December 12, 2009
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LeBronBMT said
Doug said
Hubert's innovative paperless external bank account linking process.
Was it Hubert that invented the account linking process? That's interesting
To my knowledge, they were the first credit union to invent it. At the time, only Tangerine Bank (then ING Bank of Canada and a Schedule II chartered bank) had this process. PayPal Canada Co. also had the process, so they probably were the actual inventor of the idea, but they're not a bank; they're a FINTRAC-regulated money services business.
Cheers,
Doug
7:25 pm
November 9, 2022
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The numbers posted by @pcs in post 87 seems normal turn out based on other merger votes I have seen. There is no doubt in my mind that all *employees and investors were contacted to vote. It’s an easy win if you contact the right people. I rarely vote but for this one, I voted to not be in support of merger. Has anyone ever see a merger vote fail?
*I am sure employees were given some carefully worded blurbs on why they should vote (if they were allowed to) and reassured of a position and maintain same wages. But once again carefully worded.
Like I have said before you can see that Debbie and Desiree have either left Accelerate or have been repositioned and are happier or not so happy.
In recent discussion with supervisor at Hubert, I could detect that she was not informed of the format of the new FI, but was hoping it would remain the same. I could also detect....not happy.
I called Hubert a few days ago to ask where I can find, online, what my 2023 RRIF payment would be as Oaken has already advised me. I did not recognize her name and am thinking she has been given a position to water down the current regime of Hubert employees. She gave me the 2022 figure. **WRONG!** We decided that the figure was incorrect for 2023. And did not tell me where I could find it. A question asked...but not answered ticks me off. Nor did she offer to find when or where I can find the figure even if it meant on the January 2023 RRIF statement. So for me I will tread cautiously with both Hubert and Accelerate and more so, if they all merge to one. Like, I really like Hubert for their no transfer out fee of registered products and their one year GICs.
I don’t like Accelerate simply because they won’t give my husband an ATM Card. They tell him to use the cheque deposit app. That doesn’t work for cash. Not a good thing to say to a person who dislikes banking as I do most of it.
8:15 pm
October 27, 2013
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No one can tell anyone what the 2023 RRIF payment will be until portfolio value is established on Jan 1, 2023. One might be able to guess if they don't have market value based assets, e.g. a GIC or HISA, but it won't be known for sure until Jan 1.
Any FI should be able to tell you where to find that number though, either online in your account as early as January 2nd, or your January account statement.
8:51 pm
October 21, 2013
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Agree with AltaRed.
2022 mandatory withdrawal is similarly based on balance Jan 1, 2022, and can be easily calculated.
If the RIF was transferred (from Oaken?) during 2022, then the mandatory withdrawal was already made before it was transferred.
Staff were told nobody would lose a job and that there would be more jobs for them to apply for after merger as the organization would be bigger. If your favourite employees are no longer in the positions you expect, then perhaps they got better jobs. This was all public information. I don't think there was any need to convince them further.
I have attended various virtual and in-person CU AGMs and it is my impression that staff are the majority in attendance. They vote because they are also members. Members who don't vote don't count, just like in elections for public office.
Please write your comments in the forum.