Message
from the Chair.

Eighty years! It’s hard to believe it’s been this long since 14 visionary Vancouverites came together to change banking in BC.

Created by and for members in 1946, Vancity was launched with the conviction that by pooling our resources, we can better support each other, our businesses, our communities, and our collective ambitions. And in 2025 – one of the most successful years in our history, with more than 588,000¹ members investing in your credit union – we were better positioned than ever to make good on that promise.

What a difference a year made! On the heels of a sobering, stilted 2024, 2025 was tremendous: a year in which we were once again able to use our considerable resources – our phenomenal financial, human, social, and reputational capital – to serve people, community, and planet.

As members, you will have noticed, for instance, a new digital and online banking experience, one that’s faster, more intuitive, and more reflective of your needs.

You might have gotten intrigued by our new, first-of-its-kind-in-Canada mortgage product making it easier (and cheaper!) for homeowners to build new housing units on their properties, adding needed gentle densification to our communities. Or perhaps you’ve heard from friends and family in Powell River, Courtenay, Hornby Island, and Union Bay – communities in which local banking services have been strengthened thanks to a unique merger Vancity completed with First Credit Union.

You might also have seen our teams working alongside municipal councils and community organizations to champion policies and regulations that reduce emissions and promote green building design. And let’s not forget that money – lots of it! – is flowing once again to a broad range of community partners who are providing both critical services to the marginalized, and critical challenges to the systems that marginalize them. You can read all the details and more in Wellington’s comments that follow.

From Vancity, members expect a banking partner who delivers on their values. And so, at a time when institutions around the world appear lost in a moral abyss, where commitments to Reconciliation, diversity, equity, and inclusion are being abandoned, and where recognition of and response to the climate emergency is virtually disappearing, your credit union is showing up.

Reflecting your voice and aspirations, your credit union has doubled down on a strategy that aims to scale impact. We’ve built powerful relationships with Indigenous partners that will allow us to deliver more capital to more entrepreneurs, in service of Indigenous Nations’ own visions. And we have doubled down on our commitment to, and investment in, women entrepreneurs by significantly increasing the loan limits on our targeted loans for starting up and growing women-led businesses.

“ Created by and for members in 1946, Vancity was launched with the conviction that by pooling our resources, we can better support each other, our businesses, our communities, and our collective ambitions.”

Also in 2025, our investment in affordable housing resulted in 3,915 units of affordable housing constructed or renovated with financing from Vancity. We are matching our enthusiasm for the co-operative alternative – in housing, business, professional services, and of course banking – with real capital, and working with co-op leaders to create a regenerative, caring economy. And we’ve reignited our efforts to support small- and medium-sized businesses, delivering more capital and better services.

It was, indeed, a powerful year.

In 2025, we stood proudly on the shoulders of our founding members, with their humble, radical vision for our collective wellbeing. And what a view we now have for the years ahead!