Two of Houston’s homegrown credit unions are officially one. TDECU, the city’s largest credit union, and Smart Financial Credit Union, one of its oldest, announced Monday that they have completed their merger following approval from Smart Financial’s voting members and state regulators, creating a combined institution with approximately $6 billion in assets. The merger ranks among the larger credit union combinations in the Houston market and was reported Monday by the Houston Business Journal.

The combined organization will serve more than 463,000 members through more than 45 branches across the region, with a workforce of nearly 1,000 employees. TDECU President and CEO Isaac Johnson will lead the merged institution, while Smart Financial CEO LeAnn Kaczynski will take on the role of chief integration officer, overseeing the work of combining systems, branches and back-office operations.

“Together, TDECU and Smart Financial are building a stronger cooperative with the scale to expand access, invest in member experiences and technology, and deepen our impact across the communities we serve,” Johnson said in the merger announcement.

The combination pairs two institutions with deep Houston roots. TDECU traces its founding to 1955, when seven Dow Chemical employees each chipped in five dollars to help a coworker buy a kitchen appliance. Smart Financial was established in 1934 by a group of Houston Independent School District teachers, making it one of the oldest credit unions in the metro area, with 13 locations and more than 60,000 members and roughly $800 million in assets before the deal.

Scale has become an increasingly important competitive factor for credit unions as they invest in digital banking platforms, commercial lending operations and cybersecurity. Smaller institutions face rising technology costs that are difficult to absorb on thin net interest margins, and consolidation allows member-owned lenders to spread those fixed expenses across a larger base. The merger also gives the combined TDECU a bigger balance sheet to compete with Houston’s large regional and national banks for auto loans, mortgages and small business lending.

For members, the institutions said there are no immediate changes to accounts or services, with integration milestones to be announced as they are confirmed. Credit union mergers typically preserve branch locations in the near term while back-end systems are consolidated over one to two years, and both organizations pledged continuity of the community programs attached to each, including the TDECU Cares Foundation and the Smart Financial Foundation.

The deal arrives as Houston’s financial services sector continues to diversify beyond its energy lending base. Credit unions across Texas have pursued mergers at a steady clip in recent years, and the TDECU-Smart Financial combination is among the largest to close in the Houston market this year. For the region’s consumers, the merged credit union will rank among the largest member-owned financial institutions in Greater Houston, giving it the balance sheet to lend into a metro economy that added jobs again in October even as national inflation pressures persisted.

Integration will now test the deal’s promise. Kaczynski’s integration role will be critical as the two institutions merge core banking systems, and employees at Smart Financial’s 13 branches will be watching for how staffing is handled once systems are combined. Both chief executives said the priority is a seamless transition for members, and the credit union said it will share updates as milestones are confirmed in the months ahead.