ATLANTA - The Maine Credit Union League has signed with CreditUnion Service Corporation to provide its member credit unions witha network for shared branching services. CUSC is the Atlanta-basednational shared branch network which has a substantial amount ofleague participation. The initial expansion of Maine locations willoccur through an outlet concept where credit unions open all orsome of their existing branches to the other participant creditunions' members. The new Maine network expects its first creditunion service center outlets to be in place by January, CUSC said.The entrance of Maine increases CUSC's lead in participating statenetworks to 23 and greatly enhances its foothold in the Northeast,where New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania arealready participants. Craig Beach, Vice President of Marketing forCUSC said the League has at least eight credit unions interested insigning on, and was scrambling to accommodate the greater thanexpected interest. "They had an organizational meeting andanticipated about six or eight credit unions showing up," Beachexplained. "But they told me later that they had 70 peoplerepresenting 56 credit unions show up at the meeting," he added."Credit unions now offer many remote access products which havebeen well received by members yet market research reveals that,despite significant investments in technology, members still selecttheir primary financial institution based on the convenience ofoffice locations," said John Murphy, President/CEO of the MaineCredit Union League. "We are fortunate to have another progressiveorganization join CUSC," added Carroll Beach, president/CEO ofCUSC. "Maine has long been known as one of the most progressivestates when it comes to fostering and serving credit unions. Theircooperative inclinations have made them very successful indeveloping new credit union programs that enable credit unions tobetter serve their members.