CUSOS Come in Variety of Flavors

Despite the expansion of credit unions’ incidental powers, CUSOs still serve an important role and provide vital services to credit union members and nonmembers. As the chart below from Callahan & Associates shows, the largest multi-owned CUSOs run the wide gamut of services CUs offer including credit card services, ATM networks, shared branching, mortgage lending services, trust services, data processing and investments. The distribution of primary services offered differs depending if the CUSO is wholly-owned or multi-owned. Financial services, for examples make up nearly two-thirds of wholly-owned CUSOs but only 17% of multi-owned. Conversely, 44% of multi-owned CUSOs offer lending services, but only 17% of wholly-owned CUSOs do so. Also technology operations account for 33% of multi-owned CUSO services, but only 3% of wholly-owned CUSOs.