BC Business
Beem CEO Brian Harris says being a credit union founded and operated by people who live and work in the communities they serve is a key strength
Beem Credit Union was technically formed in 2022, but the roots of the business run much deeper.
Beem became the second-largest provincially regulated credit union in B.C. in January when it merged with BlueShore Financial and expanded its branch network to over 60 locations across the province and some 193,000 members.
Mergers, of course, are nothing new for Beem. “It’s actually about eight mergers over the course of the last four years,” says Brian Harris, CEO of Beem Credit Union. “We’ve been around for about 80 years with our founding organizations,” he adds.
Beem was born when Interior Savings and Gulf & Fraser merged three years ago to expand its community reach across the province. North Peace Savings and GFCU Savings joined the network shortly after in 2024. Now, BlueShore Financial is also operating under the Beem Credit Union brand, expanding the credit union’s reach.
“BlueShore was well recognized as being a real leader within the credit union for really supporting people in financial advice and financial planning,” Harris says. “They’ve got, again, 80 years of history serving communities on the North Shore, predominantly up the Sea to Sky highway.”
The growing local credit union offers BCers an alternative way to bank at member-owned, not-for-profit institutions (unlike the big 5: RBC, CIBC, BMO, TD and Scotiabank which are for-profit). Credit unions offer most things these larger banks can (ie., savings accounts, mortgages, loans, etc.). But for Harris, it’s in digital and mobile banking where Beem is looking to make up ground.
“Credit unions have admittedly fallen behind in our ability to continue to innovate with digital technology and digital changes,” Harris says, adding that COVID signalled a shift to digital and Beem is looking to invest in those online and mobile services. “It wasn’t getting bigger for the sake of getting bigger, and we still all pale in comparison to the size of our big five banks, but it was about getting bigger to be able to better serve our members and communities,” he says.
Being bigger means Beem can also extend initiatives like its Million Dollar Bursary program to more post-secondary students, awarding 1000 prizes of $1000 to student members between the ages of 17 and 24.
“Being based here in B.C., we’re just really mindful of what we can do differently to better support our members. So whether that’s accessing education, whether that’s the ability to get into the housing market—when that is a significant stress and angst for housing affordability all around the province,” Harris says, noting Beem’s creation of a first-time homebuyers program.
Harris notes that 2025 will be a turning point for Beem, with a full brand launch planned for the fall following the March beta release of the company’s mobile online banking app. “It will have the simplicity and usability of a fintech app, but with sort of the heart and soul of a credit union,” he says.