STOCKTON, Calif. -- A fifth credit union has joined the new Credit Union Shared Resources technology consortium and there's room for more.
Community First CU of Santa Rosa joined the Central Valley-based consortium to be able to offer more online banking services at a lower cost.
"We do a good job on the 'high touch' side of the business," said Todd Sheffield, CEO of $118 million Community First. "But the high tech side is all about scale, and unless you're a $500 million operation it's impossible to offer the kinds of online services needed to compete against the big financial institutions and online banks."
CUSR has acquired servers, hardware, software licenses, and online banking applications the individual credit unions couldn't afford on their own. Redundant processors are maintained in Modesto and Stockton.
The group -- which also includes Allied CU in Stockton, First Federal CU and Community Trust CU in Modesto and Tracy FCU in Tracy -- averages $50 million in assets.
"With our current configuration, we could add another 20 like-sized credit unions," said Frank Michael, CEO of Allied CU.
New partners would need to be Symitar core processing clients but do not have to be in northern California.
"More important is for the credit union to be a strategic and active member of the group, and that has a membership with fairly sophisticated online banking needs. We don't want a partner who only buys in to save money," Sheffield says.
