Dive Brief:
- Pensacola, Florida-based Gulf Winds Credit Union has agreed to acquire Madison, Florida-based Madison County Community Bank, according to a notice on its website. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
- The credit union said it’s also changing its name to TruWorth Credit Union in spring 2027.
- The deal will create a credit union with about $1.7 billion in assets, 15 branches across Florida and Alabama and 87,000 members. Regulatory approval is expected in mid-2027, and the two companies are expected to be integrated by 2028, Gulf Winds said in a Tuesday press release.
Dive Insight:
Gulf Winds didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry Wednesday. Madison County Community Bank declined to comment on the deal’s terms or the bank’s headcount.
Gulf Winds, founded in 1954, serves north Florida, southern Alabama and southern Georgia and has about $1.3 billion in assets.
Madison County Community Bank, established in 1999, operates in Madison and Taylor counties in Florida and has about $212 million in assets.
“People don’t bank … because of the organization,” D. Edward Meggs Sr., the bank’s CEO and president, said in a video on the credit union’s website. “They’re there because of the people that are taking care of them. And as long as our people are in place, I don’t think it will make a lot of difference, as long as we can take care of their needs.”
In its website notice, Gulf Winds said bank employees “will remain the same,” and the credit union isn’t planning to close either of the bank’s locations in Madison or Perry, Florida, each about an hour east of Tallahassee.
“We’re going to have the same people, just more,” Gulf Winds CEO and President Daniel Souers said in the video, alongside Meggs. “We’re going to have the same commitment to our community, but just more resources to do it. And we have the same shared values together.”
The Gulf Winds deal marks the sixth whole-bank purchase by a credit union announced this year. As bank mergers and acquisitions have picked up, the pace of credit union-bank deals has slowed in 2026, compared to prior years.
Only four credit union-bank deals were announced in the first six months of the year, compared with 15 in 2025 and a record 20 in 2024, according to a June 22 analysis from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
“This slowdown is attributed to increasingly aggressive competition from traditional bank buyers, who are outbidding credit unions in competitive processes,” S&P Global Market Intelligence said.
Additionally, the timeline for closure of credit union-bank deals has “extended considerably,” the firm said. Such deals are taking a median of 251 or 252 days to close, versus 132 days for traditional bank deals, since President Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Alabama One Credit Union’s proposed purchase of Peoples Independent Bank, announced in February, represents the largest deal of 2026. The bank has about $476 million in assets, and the transaction is expected to close in the second half of this year.
Rebeca Romero Rainey, CEO of Independent Community Bankers of America, said the trade group has sought to demonstrate “there's impact and there's harm” to a community once a credit union acquires a community bank. She pointed to mortgage denial rates rising, for example.
The ICBA continues to urge lawmakers to end the federal tax exemption for credit unions with $1 billion or more in assets.
“Hopefully, as we continue to educate and pull these facts forward, it can help dampen that trend,” Romero Rainey said in an interview.
America’s Credit Unions CEO Scott Simpson, however, has said changes to the tax code “could negatively impact how credit unions help consumers and communities across the country,” and credit unions’ tax-exempt status benefits the financial well-being of 146 million credit union members in the U.S.
The credit union trade group didn’t immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
