Card Portfolios Makes Itself Known

BOSTON – Another firm has recently announced that it’s in the business of helping credit unions evaluate and possibly sell their credit card portfolios. The brokerages already somewhat known in the industry include Asset Exchange, Portland Oregon; Kessler Financial Services (closely associated with card issuer MBNA), Boston; and Brookwood Capital, Peterborough, New Hampshire The one to reveal itself most recently is Alliance Companies, also headquartered in Boston, which has been up and running since 2001 and which claims to have brokered the sale of at least 50 credit union card portfolios in that time. Like Brookwood, Alliance is made up of former staff from Kessler. The firm released its most recent press release to announce that it helped the $230 million Florida Commerce Credit Union, headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida, to sell its $10.3 million credit card portfolio to InfiCorp. The credit union has also entered into an agent relationship with InfiCorp under which the monoline card issuer will continue to market the credit union’s card to its members. “This is our first press release about a sale because we have generally chosen to keep things quieter,” explained Jerry Coyne, COO of Alliance. “But with the other brokerages getting their names out there we felt we needed to do so as well.” Coyne explained that Alliance has preferred to conduct its marketing on more of a one-on-one basis and to keep the confidentiality of its clients. “We recognize that this can be a difficult decision for a credit union to work through and it does not need to have too much information on the street about it too quickly,” he said. The sale of Florida Commerce’s card portfolio brought another 4,700 accounts to InfiCorp, the firm said.