CUNA on Tuesday submitted an application for “.creditunion” to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which has been taking applications from individuals and groups to buy the rights to new “top-level domain names”, also known as the words to the right of the dot in an Internet address.

The new names can focus on a community of businesses or services, such as “.creditunion” or “.news”. Others may be used to market specific brands or products.

According to ICANN, thousands of applications were expected to be filed by this week when the organization closed the application process. Those approved would likely go live in 2013.

According to CUNA President/CEO Bill Cheney, CUNA's move to reserve a credit union specific top-level domain, such as .creditunion, ensures this important identifier will stay in credit union hands and will allow the credit union movement to collectively take full advantage of the next stage of the Internet's development and growth.

“Through the financial support of CUNA Mutual Group and CO-OP Financial Services, which made our application filing possible, this unique credit union top-level domain name, if approved, would be available to credit unions to supplement or replace their existing web names,” Cheney said. He estimated the annual cost for an individual credit union to obtain its own web address under a credit union specific top-level domain name to be $100 to $200 annually per credit union.

Earlier this year, a CUNA-sponsored survey among CEOs of CUNA-member credit unions, members of its Marketing and Technology councils and others, found that nearly 60% of credit union respondents said they were interested in adding a credit union specific domain name, such as “.creditunion” to their credit union's Internet applications.

Additionally, CUNA said, nearly 70% indicated that, if the credit union system were to obtain a new top-level domain name such as “.creditunion”, they would obtain an additional domain name for their credit union or change their current domain to the new “.creditunion.”

Instant Insights /

CUNA Applies for Rights to .creditunion Top-Level Domain Names

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