The members of four New Zealand Credit Unions voted last month to merge as one, unifying NZCU South, NZCU Central, Aotearoa Credit Union and NZCU Baywide.
The merger will take place on May 1 and is aimed at creating scale efficiencies that will allow NZCU to better serve the larger group of member owners.
It will be the largest Credit Union in New Zealand with about $560million in assets, serving about 64,000 New Zealand member owners and employing 280 people.
However, questions have been raised about what will happen to the 90 employees at the NZCU South headquarters in Dunedin, when the merger goes through.
NZCU merger interim chief executive Gavin Earle, of Hastings, said little would change about the way the business would run initially.
"From day one, there's not going to be much change at all.
"We've got four different businesses that we've got to continue to run.
"We will continue to operate out of [the head offices] through this transition phase.
"But over time, there has to be some rationalisation.
"There needs to be some synergies.
"What that will look like, at this stage I can't tell you."
He said there was a commitment across the broader regions to retain a presence "as much as we can" within those geographical areas.
"That's really important to us.
"It's up to the new board which will be formed in May. A strategy will be formed out of that and we'll be moving forward on that basis."
He confirmed the merger did not mean the regions would lose any of their branches.
"There will be just over 30 branches, from Invercargill right through to Whangarei, so it creates a true nationwide presence.
"That creates opportunity for our membership to transact across branches, wherever they are."
