Welcome to the Assiniboine Credit Union 2021 annual report, highlighting another successful year amid ever-changing circumstances as we continued to adapt during the pandemic.

Throughout the year, we kept the health and safety of our employees, members, and our communities front and centre through each step of our journey. As a purpose-driven credit union, your wellbeing and resilience is the reason we use business as a force for good.

As your elected Board of Directors, we are committed to ensuring we provide the highest standards of care and good governance of our credit union. Building on our adoption of the Manitoba Market Code of Conduct that identifies market practice standards, we also invested time and resources to enhance our capabilities in governing a purpose-driven business. While we are proud to be a world-class model of purpose-driven business, we are also committed to building on our success to ensure we continue to meaningfully differentiate ourselves on our values into the future. This includes ongoing adoption of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) best practices, and updating ACU’s Enterprise Risk Management Framework to include two new corporate risks - Climate Resilience and Socio Economic Well-being.

ACU’s new corporate strategic plan builds on our core values and purpose, and positions us for success in a competitive industry and market. The strategic priorities focus on meaningfully differentiating ACU on our values, providing a consistent and compelling member experience, and growing our credit union as we create more impact for our members and communities.

A significant achievement this past year was the successful approval to merge by the Entegra Credit Union and Assiniboine Credit Union memberships. Combined, the merged credit union will have assets of over $6 billion, serve more than 141,000 members, employ over 500 talented people, and serve members with a network of 19 branches.

Over the last two years, your Board of Directors has missed engaging with you in person as we have in the past. However, we deeply value the opportunities we do have to engage with you to hear about your priorities and aspirations for our credit union. We continue to adapt and for a second year in a row, we held our annual meeting virtually, maintaining our co-operative commitments to democratic board elections, ensuring the integrity of our transparent reporting to our member-owners, and improving accessibility for those who might not have been able to attend in person in the past.

Through this process, you re-elected Marina James and Paul Lacap, and elected Jacqueline Keena to our board. We want to express our sincere gratitude to Kevin Freedman who provided governance leadership at ACU for two terms. We are grateful for his service and dedication to ACU.

Thank you to my fellow directors for your dedicated service and commitment to our member-owners and our credit union. Thank you to the executive team and all employees who are extremely committed to serving our member-owners, contributing to our communities, and building a sustainable future for all. I am very excited to see ACU continue to create impact with purpose for many generations to come.

	Crystal Laborero ACU Board Chairperson

As I reflect on another year where Assiniboine Credit Union used business as a force for good, I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished amid the ongoing health and economic challenges that the pandemic has created.

We kept the health and safety of our employees front and centre at all times, ensuring they were engaged and supported as they navigated the circumstances. This included ensuring employment security for employees during the most critical times when health concerns were greatest. Being named once again as one of Manitoba’s Top Employers reaffirmed that ACU places employee well-being at the heart of our credit union’s purpose.

As member-owners of our financial co-operative, your financial wellbeing is always a priority, and we were there for you as you navigated this past year as well. In 2021, we continued to invest in the capabilities of our teams to provide the advice and service you need, while continuing to invest in the communities we live in and share together. In our 2021 member survey, 84% indicated satisfaction with ACU, which is a very good position. We were also recognized by B Corp as being Best for the World in the category of Customers, which is you as our members.

In reviewing our financial statements, you will see that our credit union is strong. We saw modest growth in our loan portfolio and deposit growth was strong, positioning us well to finance your home, business, or community organization. ACU Wealth and Winnipeg Insurance Brokers continue to experience growth as well.

The pandemic has continued to accelerate our shift toward digital banking and initiatives that continue making it easy for you to do business with ACU. Our digital banking platform is the way most of you, our members, engage with our credit union on a daily basis. Enhancements, including increased options, continue to improve the self-service banking experience. Continued improvements to our internal systems mean our advisors will have enhanced information to inform in-depth and holistic conversations about your finances. Together with ongoing investments in the skills and knowledge of our advisors, these changes are part of our ongoing commitment to you as our credit union’s member-owners to ensure you have an exceptional member experience as we support your financial dreams and goals.

In addition to providing our members with advice and service in purchasing and renovating homes, starting or growing their businesses, and strengthening nonprofits and co-operatives in our communities, we also ensured continued investment toward our vision of a sustainable future for all.

ACU continued to reduce our carbon footprint and maintain carbon neutrality, and were once again named as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers. Our employee-led Indigenous Leadership Circle continued to provide virtual learning opportunities in support of our journey with truth and reconciliation. We continued to use finance to create social impact in the areas of affordable housing and poverty reduction, and worked with trusted community partners in bringing in over 1,000 new members to ACU through our financial access program.

Bringing Assiniboine Credit Union together with Entegra Credit Union creates the opportunity to grow with our 141,000 member-owners as we provide financial services for the wellbeing and resilience of our members, employees, communities, and environment. I am truly excited about the value this merger creates.

Thank you to the Board of Directors, the Executive Leadership Team, all our employees and member-owners, and our many community partners for being part of our success. Together, we work towards our vision of a sustainable future for all.

	Kevin Sitka President & Chief Executive Office