Spring may be nigh, but winter weather is still busting out all over. Just ask Xtend Inc., a Michigan-based provider of back-office servicesthat has provided business continuity services for more than twodozen credit unions in the past few weeks, from the Northeast tothe Southwest.

The affected credit unions were in Texas, Illinois, Michigan,New York, Kansas, Alabama and Washington, D.C.

The 180-client CUSO, an affiliate of CU*Answers, said the creditunions needed varying levels of support and backup services thatincluded book-keeping and call center work.

Xtend President Scott Collins said the winter has been the12-year-old CUSO's busiest yet.

“We have 37 credit unions that contract us to provide dailybookkeeping services for short-term needs, and many have had morethan one day this winter where the weather caused them to close,”he said.

“Our call center agents handle overflow and after-hour memberservice calls for 34 credit unions,” Collins added. “Weather-relatedclosings have resulted in a significantly higher volume ofcalls during that same period. It goes without saying thatthings have really been hopping in our office for the past severalweeks.”

More calls for help could be on the way for Xtend and others inthe backup business. Two more winter storms are currently marchingacross the country, the second of which is taking aim for the Southeast, including Atlantaand South Carolina.