SAN DIEGO – Symitar continues culling customers from the ranks of rival core processors, this time picking up $620 million Financial Partners Credit Union of Downey, Calif., and $62 million First Financial Community Credit Union of Brownsville, Texas. Both credit unions will be running the Episys platform; First Financial Community as a service bureau client and Financial Partners as an in-house client, according to the Jack Henry & Associates subsidiary. Symitar now has more than 600 users of its Episys and Cruise platforms, and is apparently continuing a trend that last year saw it convert 55 credit unions to its systems, by far leading the list of $25 million-plus credit unions switching systems in 2004, according to the 2005 Technology Survey from Callahan & Associates. Both credit unions cited acquisitions of their current processors as factors in their decision. "It was a significant decision to replace the technology platform that we have used for more than 20 years," says Bob Wyatt, CEO of First Financial Community Credit Union, now an IntegraSys client. Financial Partners, meanwhile, runs on a system from RDS, now part of Open Solutions Inc. "We are also strategically focused on expanding our field of membership and becoming a billion-dollar credit union, so Symitar's success supporting 29 of the nation's 104 credit unions that currently have more than $1 billion in assets also materially influenced our decision," says Wanda Williams, senior vice president at Financial Partners CU. Meanwhile, a current Symitar client, Choice Community Credit Union in Greensboro, N.C., has become the first to go live with a service bureau solution through eCU Technologies. The $45 million had to decide between upgrading its server system and going to the service bureau solution and chose to outsource its Episys processing through the CUSO of Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union. -

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