While Ridgefield continues to grow in population amid a boom in business, the need for more financial services has grown as well.
OnPoint Community Credit Union has expanded to the Ridgefield community. It opened its doors on Monday, Jan. 12, providing the area another option for financial services. The credit union has situated itself in the middle of the most crucial development in the city’s recent expansion of business: the Union Ridge Town Center. It is located at 420 N. 56th Place, Suite 102 between In-N-Out Burger and Costco.
“I love the growth of Ridgefield; it's doing so much for our community,” said Kristen Gillis, assistant vice president and branch manager for the Ridgefield OnPoint location. “And then being right in between In-N-Out and Costco is great. It gets us a lot of visibility, especially right on the corner of one of our famous roundabouts.”
The Ridgefield branch will offer personal and business checking, personal and commercial lending, home and equity lending, notary services and more.
OnPoint Community Credit Union is one of the largest in Oregon and Southwest Washington. The Ridgefield location marks the eighth location in Clark County and 59th branch overall. Gillis said the credit union has over 633,000 members and packs $9.5 billion in assets.
Arriving in Ridgefield, Gillis said over 200 members were already rooted in the community.
“We’re reaching out to them to make sure that they know we’re here,” Gillis said. “We’re open. We’re ready to serve them. We have been going out in the community. We’ve been to several local businesses just letting them know we’re here, come see us, what we can do to partner financially, teaching financial education or whatnot to their employees.”
Gillis explained that education is deeply rooted and is a key emphasis with OnPoint Credit Union.
“OnPoint was founded in 1932 by 16 school teachers, so our background is education,” she said. “We want to work with the schools to see what we can do to also help provide financial education there.”
On Feb. 21, OnPoint will celebrate with a grand opening event from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. OnPoint staff will present Neighbors Helping Neighbors with a $5,000 check. The donation will help purchase food, maintain its building and assist in starting a Saturday program to provide working families access to the food bank, a news release by OnPoint states.
OnPoint is also teaming up with two local nonprofit organizations: Ridgefield Public Schools Foundation and Friends of the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. From now until April 12, each new member who opens a personal or business checking account at the Ridgefield branch can choose which of the two nonprofits receive a $50 donation from OnPoint.
To learn more about OnPoint, visit OnPointCU.com.
More banks may be on the way in Ridgefield
OnPoint Credit Union dips into the market of Ridgefield that already includes financial institutions such as People’s Community Federal Credit Union, iQ Credit Union, Columbia Credit Union and Riverview Bank.
According to the Ridgefield Active Development Map, a couple other financial institutions could be on the way. The Ridgefield Gateway project currently anchored by McDonald’s is set to include a Gesa Credit Union location, which would be the first in Clark County.
On the north side of Pioneer Street from the Rosauers Supermarket, the up-and-coming Royle Ridge Station is slated to be anchored by a grocery store. A site plan labels a Grocery Outlet for the location, which also includes a convenience store with a fueling station, a bank and an additional retail building. The bank is slated to be Fibre Federal of Longview’s first location in Clark County as a ground breaking is slated for May of this year with an opening estimated for December, ahead of 2027.
On the east side of Interstate 5, where construction for a Goodwill location is taking place in Ridgefield, site plans for the Tri Mountain Station commercial project includes space for a bank.
With the extent of future and current financial institutions in Ridgefield, Gillis said there really isn’t competition, but camaraderie.
“We all work together,” she said. “Credit unions are all about each other. We really work together, and it’s just kind of building what we can do for our members and helping members out in general with their finances.”
