The Crosstown Credit Union was a cooperative society operated for and by members of the Mennonite churches in and around Winnipeg, Manitoba. It was incorporated under the Companies Act of Manitoba, under the date of 4 April 1944. It was an outgrowth of the credit union idea started in Germany by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch in the 19th century. It found its way into popularity among the Mennonites in Canada in the 1930s and later. In the early 1950s there were ten credit unions among the southern Manitoba Mennonites. The Crosstown Union restricted its membership to Mennonites within a radius of 40 miles from Winnipeg. On 1 August 1954 it had 1,046 paid-up shares and a membership of over 1,000.
The board consisted of seven directors elected by the members at general meetings. A supervisory committee of three members inspected the books once a month and a credit committee of five members considered all requests for loans and had sole authority for granting them. N. J. Neufeld was one of the prime movers to have the credit union organized and was longtime president from the beginning.
In the late 1950s assets exceeded $1,000,000. Crosstown operated out of rented space for the first seven years. In the 1950s, a building was purchased at 284 Kennedy Street. In 1964, a new building was constructed at 171 Donald Street. A part-time branch office was started in North Kildonan. Eventually a new building was constructed at 1200 Henderson Highway. A third location was opened at 1250 Portage Avenue in February 1976, and a new building was constructed at that site in 1985. The newest branch, at 515 St. Anne’s Road was opened in June 2005.
Crosstown Credit Union began merger talks with Civic Credit Union in 2006, and the merger was completed in 2007 under the name Crosstown Civic Credit Union. The merged corporation no longer was restricted to Mennonites. The merged credit union had eight branches, 31,000 members, and assets of $835,000,000.
Fretz, J. Winfield and Sam Steiner. "Crosstown Credit Union (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. August 2008. Web. 23 Apr 2019. http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Crosstown_Credit_Union_(Winnipeg,_Manitoba,_Canada)&oldid=133167.
Fretz, J. Winfield and Sam Steiner. (August 2008). Crosstown Credit Union (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 23 April 2019, from http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Crosstown_Credit_Union_(Winnipeg,_Manitoba,_Canada)&oldid=133167.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, p. 742. All rights reserved.
This page was last modified on 22 December 2015, at 08:38.