PLYMOUTH, Mich. - The Credit Union Village portal (www.cu-village.com) is encouraging leagues and credit unions alike to participate in what it dubs as the first true business-to-consumer and business-to-business portal for credit unions. Credit Union Village was developed by CUCorp., a league service organization of the Michigan Credit Union League. At press time, Dave Adams, CEO of CUCorp. and the Michigan CU League said that CUCorp. is in the process of being spun off as a separate company. Ownership is being opened up to credit unions, credit union leagues, and credit union service organizations (CUSOs, trade associations, etc.). "The partner level is going to be a new sort of syndication model we've developed. The Golden 1 is the first to sign up for the partner level. Partners will have the greatest income potential," said Adams. Partners can share in as much as 60% of the portal's revenue. Adams said the initial offering should begin on July 1 if all goes well. "Our target is to raise $6 million, not including the $1.5 million the Michigan League and CUCorp. are going to commit," said Adams. Having both a business-to-business and business-to-consumer model is the key to Credit Union Village, said Adams. At press time, 49 credit union leagues had committed to join the B-to-B component of the portal, with 29 already up and running. "One of the significant announcements on the B-to-B side is going to be a very comprehensive learning center made available through state credit union leagues via CU Village's site. It will integrate one of the largest catalogs of online courses as well as financial service and credit union specific training products," said Adams. Adams said this will allow leagues to present online training and educational content to their CU members via their own Village. One credit union might sign up for a lending course, for example, and have their loan officers work through it over the Web. Part of the learning content will come from CUNA, said Adams. In fact, CUNA and CUNA Mutual are likely to play a key role in the future of Credit Union Village, he said. "Along the way we are working closely with CUNA and CUNA Mutual. The reason is because they are very innovative, and we don't want to duplicate each other's efforts," said Adams. Adams said credit union organizations such as CUNA and CUNA Mutual are likely candidates to become partners. One of the concepts behind CU Village is that each village for each league or CU contains content unique for their membership, which often means presenting products and services from vendors in their area. As for the B-to-C side of CU Village, Adams said the breadth of content on the site is leading edge. "We are putting a lot of fresh daily and weekly content on there as far as consumer tips. We like to say that it's credit union and consumer friendly. We're adding a classified section for members, some auto buying solutions and are working on a significant number of shopping/vendor relationships," said Adams. He said all participants of CU Village will share the revenue, with partners getting the biggest cut. "We haven't worked through all the dynamics of the shopping, but we want to emulate what successful sites like chase.com are doing in terms of `incenting' cardholders to shop at their credit union portal site. The bottomline is everything we do is going to minimize competitive problems, without making it a closed portal. It's open, but closely monitored for competition." Adams said the credit union industry needs one large portal player that has the critical mass to negotiate deals with major e-commerce players-that's one of the reasons the Village is being spun off, he said. Subscriber fees range from between $200 to $600 a month. -
pgentile@cutimes.com
