Our History
Founded in 1923 by a small group of City of Milwaukee employees, Prime Financial Credit Union was the first-ever credit union established in the State of Wisconsin.
The Start of a Movement
The legacy of Wisconsin Credit Unions begins in 1913 with Charles McCarthy of the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Library. Motivated by his interest in cooperative principles, McCarthy championed legislation permitting the organization of “cooperative credit associations” in the state. Despite this legislation being readily adopted into Wisconsin law, the first state-chartered Credit Union would not take root until a decade later with the leadership of Senator Herman Schultz.
As a City of Milwaukee employee, Schultz observed the gross negative impact of loan sharks on the wellbeing of his fellow workers throughout the city offices.
Inspired by the people’s banks of Germany, his homeland, Schultz set out with the assistance of McCarthy and the Credit Union National Extension Bureau to draft a bill that would modernize the 1913 law. In 1923, shortly after the passage of these revisions, Milwaukee Municipal Credit Union (MMCU) applied for the State’s first-ever Credit Union charter with $27 in payments on shares from “seven or eight incorporators [that] ‘just emptied their pockets’”.
Through the years, the Credit Union has grown and undergone several name changes to become the Credit Union you know today, Prime Financial Credit Union.