MADISON, Wis.-CUNA and CU Business Partners have entered amarketing agreement to provide credit unions with an easier, lesscostly avenue of getting started in member business lending. “Thisprogram offers our member credit unions the potential to strengthentheir portfolios while helping their members achieve their businessdreams,” CUNA Vice President of Strategic Alliances Wes Millarsaid. “And importantly, this program accomplishes these endswithout driving up costs to credit unions.” The service willalleviate some of the pressures associated with in loanorigination, participation, underwriting, servicing and qualitycontrol in small business loans, commercial real estate lending,and loan participations. It will permit credit unions to diversifyloan assets while skipping the upfront expenses, staff time andresources. Jean Faenza, president of Business Partners stated,“With CUNA providing the training and Business Partners handlingthe costly infrastructure, credit unions will have more timeavailable to build the relationship with the business member.” CUBusiness Partners, originally established as Telesis Partnership byTelesis Community Credit Union, has close to 10 years of experienceand expertise to rapidly provide loan applications, process all theborrower data, underwrite the credit to ensure integrity, prepareloan documents and manage the loan closing. Business Partnersservices a loan for its life through billing and paymentprocessing, loan compliance, collection, continuous communication,and an annual loan review.