Truliant Federal Credit Union

History

Truliant was chartered in 1952 to serve the employees of Western Electric. It was called the Radio Shops Federal Credit Union. Initially, the credit union served members in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina; it was staffed by Western Electric employees – and cost 25 cents to join. In 2023, Truliant counted more than 300,000 members. It has 36 branches in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, more than $4.3 billion in assets, and employs more than about 950 employees. What follows are key highlights of its 70-year history. Fred Sarda, a section chief at Western Electric, led a group of employees to form a financial co-op to benefit workers. Radio Shops Federal Credit Union received approval for its charter and within three months, the it had 1,100 members. In 1954, it adopted the first of several name changes: North Carolina Works Federal Credit Union. By 1962, NC Works had grown to more than 8,000 members. In 1968, it was the 96th largest federal credit union in the U.S. By 1975, it was the 42nd largest. At the end of the 1970s, the credit union had five branches in Western Electric facilities, 20 employees and the main office. In 1983, new administrative offices and its first branch that wasn’t inside a Western Electric facility opened. But then the Bell System was broken up, Western Electric was dissolved and AT&T Technologies took over the credit union’s corporate charter.
To reflect this change, the credit union became AT&T Family Federal Credit Union in 1984. It added its first Select Employee Group (SEG), which allowed members who worked at organizations outside the original charter to join. As other businesses began offering AT&T Family FCU’s benefits, it helped seed growth in southwest Virginia and the Charlotte region. At the end of 1988, AT&T Family Federal Credit Union had 11 locations, $212 million in assets, 46,000 members and 40 SEG groups. In the early 1990s, it built a 50,000-square-foot headquarters at Frontis Plaza in Winston-Salem. Its growth caught the attention of banks, who viewed it as a threat. Several banks and an industry trade group sued to stop AT&T Family Federal Credit Union’s SEG membership expansion in Asheboro, N.C. in 1990. A multi-year legal battle followed. In 1998, the battle ended with a bank victory in the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling could have forced millions of members to leave credit unions. However, a year earlier, H.R. 1151 – a bill allowing multiple common bonds among members – was introduced in Congress in case credit unions lost at the Supreme Court. After the ruling, it passed both houses of Congress. On August 7, 1998, H.R. 1151 – the Credit Union Membership Access Act – was signed into law, preserving consumers’ rights to choose their financial institution. Soon, AT&T Family changed its name to Truliant, a blend of the words true and reliant. As the 1990s came to an end, Truliant opened more branches, developed its first website, had $800 million in assets and served 550 SEG business partners.
In 2002, it had 160,000 members. It began to further operationalize its member-first approach. Advisory services were offered; business lending became a focus; and digital services were expanded. In 2005, Truliant surpassed $1 billion in assets and opened its 122,000-square-foot Truliant Way headquarters, where the administrative offices are located today. In 2014, Truliant began adding locations in the Charlotte region to expand membership access. Two years later, Truliant surpassed 200,000 members. In 2021, the Truliant Foundation was established to expand on the ‘People Helping People’ philosophy of credit unions. Truliant Academy opened in 2020, repurposing a former retail space into a training center. In 2022, Truliant completed the renovation of a regional office in downtown Greenville to provide operational support for new branches. To support its growing footprint, Truliant opened a new Operations Center at Hanes Mall in 2023, complete with 740 solar panels.