Alabama ONE Credit Union to acquire in-state bank in latest CU-bank deal.
The purchase would create a nearly $2 billion-asset institution and mark the second whole-bank acquisition by a credit union announced in 2026.
Peoples Independent Bancshares Inc., the holding company for Peoples Independent Bank, has agreed to sell substantially all of the bank’s assets and liabilities to Alabama ONE Credit Union, the companies said Wednesday.
The transaction, structured as a purchase and assumption agreement, is expected to close in the second half of 2026. Financial terms were not disclosed. Olsen Palmer LLC, which served as financial adviser to Peoples Independent Bancshares, announced the deal.
The combination of Alabama ONE Credit Union and Peoples Independent Bank would create a credit union with approximately $1.9 billion in assets, extending a string of acquisitions by credit unions seeking scale through bank purchases.
Peoples Independent Bank, based in Boaz, Alabama, reported $476 million in assets at the end of the third quarter, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The bank earned $5.7 million through Sept. 30, 2025, compared with $6.4 million during the same period in 2024.
Alabama ONE, headquartered in Tuscaloosa, reported $1.5 billion in assets as of Dec. 31 and serves 96,201 members. The credit union earned $5.5 million last year and nearly $4 million in 2024, according to NCUA call report data.
The agreement marks the second banking subsidiary of Peoples Independent Bancshares to be acquired by Alabama ONE. In late 2022, the credit union announced plans to purchase the $130 million-asset First Bank of Wadley, a deal that closed in 2024.
Alabama ONE also acquired First Bank of Linden in 2021.
The transaction is the second whole-bank acquisition by a credit union announced in 2026. In January, Zeal Credit Union of Livonia, Michigan, and The Miners State Bank of Iron River said they had entered into a definitive agreement under which Zeal would acquire substantially all of the bank’s assets and liabilities in an all-cash transaction.
Credit union-bank combinations have accelerated in recent years. Sixteen such acquisitions were announced in 2025, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, slightly below the record 22 announced in 2024.
One of last year’s deals involved another Alabama bank. Legacy Community Federal Credit Union in Birmingham, Alabama, agreed to acquire the $104 million-asset First Community Bank.
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In addition, two deals were announced in February in which credit unions plan to purchase branches from community banks.
The steady pace of transactions reflects a broader realignment in community finance, as credit unions — historically limited to organic growth and member expansion — increasingly turn to bank acquisitions to broaden their geographic reach and asset base.
“With tax-exempt credit unions continuing their troubling pace of acquiring tax-paying community banks into 2026, ICBA and the nation’s community bankers continue our call for policymakers to address the harmful impact these deals have on local communities,” said the Independent Community Bankers of America’s President and CEO, Rebeca Romero Rainey, in a recent press release.
If completed, the Alabama ONE and Peoples Independent Bank transaction would further cement that trend, adding nearly half a billion dollars in assets to the Tuscaloosa-based credit union and reinforcing its strategy of growth through acquisition.
