CU Members Mortgage is one of the largest for-profit providersof mortgage services for credit unions turns 30 years old this yearand said it stands ready to enter its next decade armed with thelatest in mortgage origination and servicing technology.

“Obviously, in this business using technology to help streamlinethe process is way to go,” said David Motley, president of CUMembers Mortgage. “We look forward to adding and implementingtechnology to improve the mortgage process for our credit unionclients and their members.”

CU Members Mortgage began life in 1982 as a division ofColonial Savings, itself a 30-year-old firm at that time that beganlife as Fort Worth Mortgage but changed its name in 1972 after itacquired Colonial Savings. For the first 11 years of its existence,the fact that it was a division of Colonial Savings meant little.The firm did not break out its credit union business from itsregular retail mortgage origination, according to Linda Clampitt,senior vice president with the firm. But in its first year, CUMembers Mortgage originated one mortgage loan on behalf of theSchlumburger Employees Credit Union for less than $100,000.

Segregating the credit union business more distinctly into itsown part of the firm's operations allowed Colonial Savings to focusmore closely on meeting unique credit  union needs forhigh-touch service and high degrees of member and borrowercommunication, Clampitt explained.  And history hasvalidated the move, she added. As of this year, CU Members Mortgagehas 175 employees, 1,224 credit union clients with a combinedmembership of 20 million and combined assets of $178 billion.

The firm closed more than $14 billion in home loans for creditunion members in 2011 and saw its credit union business account forfully 52% of its total mortgage originations last year.

In the wake of the financial crisis and the resulting wave ofmortgage regulations, which have not yet run their course, the firmlaunched four different ways credit unions could become the firm'sclients. The options range from a level where the firm providesmortgage consultant who take the mortgage applications, process theloans, underwrite them, close them and then service them to a levelwhere a credit union does all the origination work exceptunderwriting and then sells the loan to CU Members Mortgage.

While from the outside it might appear that the full-serviceoption was one smaller credit unions would opt for automatically,Clampitt reported that credit unions of all asset sizes were thefirm's clients who used that option. The determinate of which CUused the full service option had more to do with how the CU wantedto handle mortgages, whether it wanted to put the staff and otherresources into having its own mortgage department or outsource thework, Clampitt explained.