Meridian Credit Union has taken the long-vacant space at 690-692 Mt. Pleasant Rd. and Soudan Ave. Workers are busy putting a bank-like stone front on the premises this week. It is a tenancy which seems likely to bring important additional vitality to the Mount Pleasant Village BIA strip. Meridian is Ontario’s largest credit union and it has vowed to take on Canada’s banking “Five Sisters” by creating a sixth national bank. The ambitious firm was formed in 2005 in the Niagara Region where it is still headquartered in St. Catharines. Meridian was formed April 1 of that year by the merger of the Niagara Credit Union and the HEPCOE (hydro workers) Credit Union. Since then Meridian has been on a tear, opening more than 40 branches in Ontario, one of the most recent being the outlet in the SmartCentre on Wicksteed Ave. Locally, the Meridian strategy has caused it to straddle Bayview Ave. where BMO, CIBC, TD, Royal and Scotia have formed a well-known Canadian banking cluster. But no such cluster exists on Mt. Pleasant. Only RBC has a branch there. All the banks are represented on Laird near the SmartCentre but only two — Royal and BMO — are in the shopping complex.
