Welcome to the Pathways Project website—a portal designed to bring you information about the unique partnership between First Calgary Savings and First West Credit Union.

What’s this partnership all about? First West--and it's divisions Envision Financial and Valley First--together with First Calgary Savings are working together to form a new financial services organization for Western Canada.

Unlike a traditional merger, in which one or both parties lose their individual identities, this initiative sees the merging credit unions create a new business model that retains local identities, community focus and decision making, while combining assets and support functions under a single corporate parent.

Other distinguishing elements associated with this unique partnership model include:

• Democratic governance structure and representation
  A continued focus on excellence in personal member service
• A distributed support structure that combines balance sheets and appropriate support functions and services to create synergies and economies of scale
• A focus on talent retention; the new organization will be an employer of choice that respects, involves and builds opportunities for employees
• Retained local identities, community focus and local decision making

Through the Pathways partnership, First Calgary Savings and First West collaborate to the fullest extent wherever possible, enabling each organization to be more successful in its local market than if it were to do it alone. The extent and means of this collaboration may change over time, but the commitment to partnering where it makes sense, sharing best practices, creating greater effectiveness and efficiencies, and learning together is unwavering.

This unique partnership offers many benefits to the credit unions involved, including economies of scale, access to new markets, and expanded career opportunities for our employees. At the same time, it preserves local decision making, community focus, and close member contact.

On this website you will find information on the Pathways partnership, background information on our credit unions, introductions to who we are, updates on our partnership's progress, and answers to your questions.