GLASTONBURY, Conn. – Core processor Open Solutions Inc. wants to cater to the unique needs of credit unions and banks, so it is separating its core processing group into two focuses – credit unions and banks. OSI already has two separate core products for CUs and banks, but in reality they are very similar as they each run off of the same relational core processing platform. What differs are the add-ons, modules and enhancements. The credit union group will be led by Gary Daniel, a sales exec with over 30 years experience in the data processing industry. Daniel joined OSI in 2001 as SVP of Sales and Marketing. OSI has brought in another sales leader, James Kern, to run the banking group. Daniel, 59, who has been selling to both banks and credit unions over the years, said there is so much interest on the credit union side that he is glad OSI is giving him the resources to focus on the industry. "We're so excited about credit unions. I think OSI is the next wave. I remember years ago when ULTRADATA came on the scene and everybody went with them. I think Symitar had a wave, and I think we could be the next wave," said Daniel. The CU group will have basically three levels of professionals – sales people, system consultants and account managers. Daniel said separating banks and CUs makes sense because though they are converging in terms of products and services, there are still differences, and more importantly bank leaders and CU leaders "think they're different than each other. I don't see much difference between the two. Though, credit unions do really seem to embrace the concept of serving their members." He said more and more credit unions are asking for small business functionality, while its banking clients look for full-blown commercial lending features. The features added are really what will separate the CU and bank solutions. "We've taken our system and tweaked it depending on whether it's a commercial bank, a finance company, a mortgage company, etcetera. Some companies have a specific banking product, a specific commercial bank product, a specific credit union product. They've acquired companies and are supporting those products. Our development staff only has to support one system," said Daniel. Fiserv is a good example of a company that has acquired many different systems. Daniel said of the seven Fiserv DP subsidiaries, the one it sees the most in the sales RFP process is Summit. OSI has 1,300 financial clients. That number includes not just core processing but other ancillary products such as online cash management, account aggregation, and others. It has about 200 CU core processing clients, many of those come from this year's acquisition of FiTech Systems. OSI has been very successful with large CUs, counting a number of billion-dollar plus CUs as clients, including Boeing Employees CU, Bellco, Bethpage, North Island FCU and others. Along the large asset lines, OSI is also becoming the processor of choice for more corporate credit unions such as Southeast Corporate, Corporate One, Georgia Central CU, and Constitution State Corporate. Bellco and Bethpage have also formed a CUSO around enhancements to the OSI system and are considering bringing on other large CUs as owners. While OSI is known for serving large CUs, the FiTech acquisition brought a lot of small and mid-size CUs into the mix. Daniel said the company's smallest CU client has about $2 million in assets. Daniel said OSI isn't trying to be all things to all credit unions. "Many credit unions would prefer to get as many products as possible from one company, but some want best of breed. Boeing picked us for core processing but picked Corillian for Net banking and Appro for online loan origination, and that's fine." OSI went public around Thanksgiving. Daniel said the capital influx from the IPO will let the company do more deals. "The thing about being public now is we have a pretty good sized war chest to do acquisitions. The ones we had done in the past we had to do for all cash, but now we can do cash and stock. We don't really need to buy any more core systems, but some ancillary products could work. A big part of our business plan is cross-selling other products, loan origination, check imaging," said Daniel OSI hopes the new CU unit and the FiTech acquisition demonstrates to CUs how committed the company is to the industry, said Daniel. -

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