Nova Credit Union's members are today likely to confirm a step toward a union with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank under the latter's Alliance Bank model.The Newcastle-based ADI, with A$25 million at its June 2016 balance date, is the second smallest credit union remaining in New South Wales, and one of ten Australia-wide with fewer than $50 million in assets.A special general meeting today will consider changes to Nova's constitution to foster an Alliance Bank proposal. Proxy votes, already disclosed, show 93 per cent of members that voted in that manner supported the changes. This represented 32 per cent of all members.The allure of Bendigo and the Alliance option may be recent. In the 2016 annual report, Martin Cushing, the chair, wrote that "the board of Nova Credit Union this year has invested on the members' behalf in a new Head Office. The purchase of this building is to give a clear message to the members that we are committed to the long term viability of the Credit Union."Nova's net profit of $19,739 was less than half that of 2015, while deposits fell four per cent over the financial year.With the SGM out of the way, and assuming members at the meeting also concur, the board of Nova will then be in a position to progress negotiations over terms with Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.MCU, based in Maleny, Queensland, is following a similar path to Nova, though there is no clarity on the next milestone. MCU has around $45 million in assets.The MCU board told members last week that "negotiations continue and regulatory issues are being addressed to enable the next round of information to be advised to members."A special general meeting of MCU members, previously projected for early May, looks like being deferred.The bank launched the Alliance Bank partnership model in 2014, with four partners tied down in the first phase, the now AWA Alliance Bank, BDCU Alliance Bank, Circle Alliance Bank and Service ONE Alliance Bank.Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, at its half-year results in February 2017, said four ADIs had signed confidentiality agreements over the Alliance model.Credit unions transfer their ADI assets and liabilities to the bank, with the member-owned company continuing in mutual form as an operator of a franchise of the bank. In principal, Nova and MCU, as with the four former mutual ADIs that pioneered the way, will look for a new use for the members' reserves accumulated over decades of trading as a banking alternative.