GREENSBORO, N.C. – Face it corporates, with credit unions ableto use the services of just about any of the nation's 29corporates, for a corporate image is everything First CarolinaCorporate recently released its new branding effort that it hopeswill polish its image as a very cooperative, yet independentcorporate. “Probably about two years ago we changed our focus interms of product development. Our new logo represents the fact thatwe look at strategic partnership as kind of our vision. But as westarted looking at credit unions struggling with their bottomlines, we are focusing on products that can help them generateincome,” said First Carolina Corporate President/CEO David Brehmerwho just passed his 10-year anniversary as head of the $2.3 billioncorporate. “We've managed to be very low cost, and try to avoidduplication of infrastructure that exists. We provide a wide rangeof services with partners we trust,” said Brehmer. The corporate'snew logo highlights that partnership with three chain links, onerepresenting credit unions, one for First Carolina and othercorporates, and one for U.S. Central. The corporate's new taglineis “Experience. Stability. Vision.” Brehmer said the average seniormanager at First Carolina has 14 years of corporate experience. “Wefeel we have a very experienced management team. In fact it goesdown to mid-management,” he said. The new branding effort comesjust in time for the corporate's 25th anniversary in 2005. As partof helping CUs generate income, First Carolina, in a first for anycorporate, partnered with a mortgage company (Homeowners Mortgageout of South Carolina) to help credit unions get into the mortgagegame. Homeowners Mortgage happens to be one of the few firms thatis a multi-license user of the popular PrimeAlliance onlinemortgage system which streamlines the mortgage process using FannieMae's Desktop Underwriter. “We're approaching 30 credit unions onthat program. Our goal there was that every credit union needs tobe a player in the mortgage market, ideally a competitive one,”said Brehmer. The alliance can literally help a CU with no mortgageprogram get in the game very quickly. “We've had credit unions, whoin 90 days generated a million dollars in loans,” said Brehmer. TheCU acts mostly as the marketing arm. In most cases HomeownersMortgage does all the underwriting and sells the mortgages in thesecondary market. In other cases, it's just a way to give CUsaccess to the PrimeAlliance system. Either way, it helps CUsgenerate income, said Brehmer. This partnership has gone so wellFirst Carolina and Homeowners Mortgage actually joined forces tostart First Carolina Real Estate Services, LLC, which helps guidemembers through the home buying process. Reps can act as thein-between for members and real estate agents and become a memberadvocate. “It's more or less a referral program. The great thing isthe consumer gets a rebate at the end of the transaction,” saidBrehmer. It's good for CUs too, because the LLC directs the memberto the credit union for financing. It currently has two employees,each with over 20 years of real estate experience. First Carolinais also the fifth corporate to become part of the popular CUBusiness Group corporate credit union CUSO. The CUSO was formed byNorthwest Corporate a few years ago and includes FirstCorp, EmpireCorporate, and WesCorp as partners. “An increasing number of creditunions are interested in business services. We want to provide themwith something we have a vested interest in,” said Brehmer. Thecorporate also has partnerships with both U.S. Central andMid-Atlantic Corporate for bill pay services. Brehmer said thecorporate chose to partner with both to give its members a choice.It is also has two registered investment reps as part of U.S.Central's ISI broker/dealer program. Other partnerships include anALM product with Southeast Corporate and with EasCorp's ALM FirstCUSO. Despite its ALM partnerships with other corporates, it alsolaunched its own Web-based product. “The value we bring is we hireda full-time ALM analyst whose entire job is to work with creditunions to interpret the data. So we have a dedicated expert helpingcredit unions with that data, as opposed to having a system just tomeet regulatory requirements,” said Brehmer. First Carolina isn'talways the one using other corporates' products. For example, forabout a year now VaCorp has been using First Carolina for ACHorigination. VaCorp's members can access the ACH service throughVaCorp's Web site. It is branded under the name iCAPS so FirstCarolina isn't really visible, said Brehmer. Brehmer said under hiswatch he hopes to keep First Carolina as a system player. “Wereally feel we have an interdependency within the system. We workvery close with the leagues, U.S. Central, other corporates and ourown credit unions,” said Brehmer. [email protected]