Saratoga Federal Credit Union eyes South Glens Falls branch

A Saratoga Springs credit union in business since 1945, according to the credit union’s website, has opened its first branch outside Saratoga County, in Gloversville, and is looking at South Glens Falls for the next one, CEO Don Denofio told the Glens Falls Business Journal in a story published Sept. 20. Saratoga Federal Credit Union quietly opened the Gloversville branch a few weeks before that story, with a formal grand opening scheduled for Sept. 24, the Business Journal reported.

The move follows the credit union’s 2025 expansion of its field of membership into Fulton, Montgomery, Warren and Washington counties, according to the Business Journal. The credit union’s website now says the credit union serves all five counties.

The credit union at a glance

Here is what members and prospective members should know, from the credit union’s website and the Business Journal.

• Branches are at 189 Ballston Ave. (Route 50) in Saratoga Springs, 444 Geyser Road with a Ballston Spa address, and 185 Fifth Ave. in Gloversville.
• All three branches are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with drive-thru service. The Geyser Road branch has a 24-hour ATM, the Ballston Avenue and Gloversville branches have no ATM, and only the Ballston Avenue branch accepts postal mail, according to the website.
• The credit union had about $60 million in assets, according to the Business Journal.
• Members can use the CO-OP shared branching network, which the credit union says includes more than 5,600 credit union branches nationally and 85 in the Capital Region and North Country.

Why Gloversville came first

Denofio told the Business Journal that the credit union looked at housing values, demographics, income levels and the potential for mortgage lending in the four new counties before choosing a site. He said the goal was to “help people in a banking desert,” and that Warren County was already thriving, which was one reason the credit union did not go there first.

Gloversville has opportunities for home improvement loans, home equity lines and mortgage refinancing, according to the Business Journal, which reported that home values in the city rose 30% over two years even as many residents carry high debt loads.

The credit union leased a two-lot site with a former bank building and a drive-thru ATM that had sat empty for five years. The landlord bought the property for $300,000, far less than the roughly $1.5 million it would have cost to build a new branch, the Business Journal reported, and officials in Gloversville and Johnstown sped up building inspections to help it reopen. The branch has an all-local staff of five, including Fulton County native Taran O’Brien, who handles community outreach, and a branch manager who lives about a mile from the branch and previously ran a KeyBank branch in the area.

How the credit union lends

Denofio described an approach to lending that leans less on automated credit scores than commercial banks do. He cited an auto loan at 5.75% for a borrower with no credit score, the Business Journal reported. Delinquencies across the roughly $60 million credit union totaled $45,000 on five loans, according to the same report.

Denofio said the Gloversville branch has made some exceptions on loans in its first weeks, and that some people who walked in were approved for loans they did not think they could get anywhere else.

He also said that credit unions under $50 million in assets struggle to compete with multibillion-dollar institutions, so the credit union tries not to take them on directly, choosing markets that larger banks are not fighting over.

South Glens Falls could be next

South Glens Falls, a village in the Town of Moreau at the northern edge of Saratoga County, fits the same criteria that led the credit union to Gloversville, Denofio told the Business Journal. He has looked at storefronts along Route 9 there and said any site would need room for drive-thru service. Queensbury, across the Hudson River in Warren County, would mean more competition, he said, and the credit union tries to avoid that. The Business Journal described South Glens Falls as a place where people live while working and spending their free time in Glens Falls and Saratoga Springs, with easy access to all three counties around it.

In Warren and Washington counties, the credit union has not opened standalone branches. Shared branching, ATMs and digital banking serve members there, Denofio said, giving the credit union a physical presence without construction costs, especially since many residents of those counties commute toward Saratoga every day. The credit union may also look at mergers with smaller credit unions instead of building.

What members should know now

A few practical points from the credit union’s website.

• Members get surcharge-free ATM access at Stewart’s Shops locations, though the credit union’s own foreign ATM fees can still apply.
• The credit union says members also get unlimited free ATM access at Price Chopper and Market 32 stores in the five counties.
• Texting a ZIP code to 91989 returns nearby ATMs and shared branches.
• The credit union has warned members about fraudulent calls and texts from people claiming to be the credit union’s fraud department.

Our read: for a small credit union, reopening a former bank building that had sat empty for five years, and then eyeing a Saratoga County village on Route 9, is a deliberate bet on underserved markets rather than head-to-head competition. No South Glens Falls site has been announced.

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