In 1957, Service Credit Union (SCU) was founded (as Portsmouth Air Force Base Credit Union) to serve the employees (both military and civilian) of Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Today, SCU provides financial services to well over 200,000 members at more than 50 locations throughout New Hampshire, North Dakota, Massachusetts, and Germany.
In addition to loans and insurance, SCU offers a range of personal depository banking products, including checking, savings, money market, and Certificate of Deposit (CD) accounts, as well as IRA CDs. The money market accounts include varying rate tiers, depending upon the account balance. CD terms range from 3 months to 5 years. Additionally, SCU offers business checking, business savings, business money market, and business CD accounts.
Service Credit Union is open to active duty military and veterans, current/retired DoD employees, members of the American Consumer Council, and members of any one of the over 300 select employer groups. Family members are also eligible to join.
See current membership details
I didn't see many reviews from 2020, so I wanted to add my perspective. I discovered SCU when they opened their membership eligibility to anyone who joined the American Consumer Council. I decided to join after a lot of research of other CUs and found SCU met a lot of my financial and technology requirements.
Opening the account was very easy. I did a bit of research and selected 4 products to open: Savings (currently yielding 5% on $500, Holiday Club (currently yielding 3% on $3,000, Money Market (for the rest of my savings), and Checking (free ATM reimbursements with direct deposit).
I spent a long time researching credit unions in my area and those open nationwide. What I found was that SCU has one of the highest paying interest accounts without having to go through a lot of hoops (no need to use debit cards to get the higher rate) and they reimburse a certain amount of ATM fees with direct deposit. Additionally, SCU natively integrates with Zelle, which was important to me as I use this service a lot to pay back friends and family.
SCU participates in Shared Branching so I can go to a participating branch basically anywhere in the US.
Finally, the mobile app and online banking are both easy to use, intuitive, and I get notified via text and push notification anytime there is a deposit or withdrawal. You can't do everything on the mobile app (such as external transfers), but it's good enough for 99% of my needs.
A nice added bonus is that SCU will release your direct deposit 2 days early before your pay date.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with SCU. In summary:
(+) Deposit rates higher on average than other credit unions
(+) ATM reimbursements
(+) Shared Branch
(+) Zelle integration
(+) Mobile app/online banking
(+) External transfers
(-) 25 transaction limit per day on both credit and debit cards (discovered while trying to shop Christmas gifts, but no big deal as I can better plan next year)
I have no other info or opinion about the bank, just want to say that for DOD who are not deployed, their savings rate is 5% on 1st $500 and .5 above that.
After many years of being at Service credit union, I'm finally leaving to a different bank! After speaking to a customer service representative on the phone, I made my decision! This lady was the rudest customer service person I've dealt with in a long time, I never write reviews, and complain, and this lady made me want to write a review, and complain anywhere I can! Very rude, to me even after being a costumer for years, just hung up and was plain rude!
There fraud depart sounds like they have no idea how to do there job they lie to you
Overall | |
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NCUA # | 24921 |
Year Chartered | 1957 |
Employees | 826 |
Primary Regulator |
Profit Margin | |
---|---|
Return on Assets - YTD | 0.82% |
Return on Equity - YTD | 8.17% |
Annual Interest Income | $119.7MM |
Assets and Liabilities | ||
---|---|---|
Assets | Q3 2022vs Q3 2021 | $5.19B$5.14B |
Loans | Q3 2022vs Q3 2021 | $4.12B$3.61B |
Deposits | Q3 2022vs Q3 2021 | $4.61B$4.38B |
Equity Capital | Q3 2022vs Q3 2021 | $523.4MM$519.7MM |
Loan Loss Allowance | Q3 2022vs Q3 2021 | $21.1MM$18.2MM |
Unbacked Noncurrent Loans | Q3 2022vs Q3 2021 | $10.1MM$5.0MM |
Real Estate Owned | Q3 2022vs Q3 2021 | $0$0 |
Rates for Service Credit Union are currently being reviewed.