DES MOINES, Iowa – While the credit union world was in awe that 12 State Farm credit unions said they will undergo a massive merger into one $3 billion credit union, Harland Financial Services has seen this before. All 12 of the CUs run on the same Harland Financial Solutions' ULTRADATA core system in service bureau mode. They are processed out of Harland's new data center in Des Moines, Iowa. They also use a number of Harland front-office and back-office solutions. There used to be many more State Farm CUs than there are today, which Harland knows better than anyone. Harland helped in the merging of 27 State Farm CUs down to today's 12. "We've done it before. It takes a lot of planning," said Mike Koschmeder, director of client services, credit union core systems, Harland Financial Solutions. "Mainly we're following the lead of the State Farm credit unions in terms of what they want to accomplish," said Koschmeder. State Farm CUs became in-house clients of then credit union data processor ULDTRADATA in 1993. ULTRADATA was later bought out by Harland. The State Farm CUs moved to Premier Systems Inc., which operated ULTRADATA in service bureau mode, in 1997. PSI was also later bought out by Harland. Koschmeder said the last time Harland helped merge State Farm CU systems from those of 27 CUs to 12 CUs, it did it in groups. "We merged two or three together at a time. We'll do the same here. It's not like we will take 12 into 1 overnight," he said. The first systems merger won't happen until February of next year, according to Harland. "We will be working with them methodically over the next three years. As we bring each element in, the member activity is what then populates the core system and ultimately the general ledger," said David McConney, executive vice president and general manager, credit union core systems, Harland Financial Solutions. McConney said one significant advantage the new CU will have is a broader and deeper member relationship management system. "They will have the opportunity to apply solutions that are going to give them a much better look at their members, to look at member behavior across a much broader group," said McConney. This expanded look will of course help the CU target products and services more accurately to members. McConney also thinks the CU will save considerable money on technology costs because of its new economies of scale. Harland has to be more than just a technology provider with a merger of this size, they have to be a consultant on many business levels, said McConney. "You need the right partner to allow you the flexibility to do things. We have brand new state-of-the-art equipment, redundancies built into every system. A customer of this size doesn't need to worry," said McConney. The State Farm CUs are processed out of Harland's 38,000 square-foot facility in Des Moines, which was revamped and opened in July of last year. The facility also houses some disaster recovery support systems. Harland Financial Solutions has five credit union processing clients over a billion dollars in assets, but once the State Farm mergers are done, the new State Farm CU will be its largest at roughly $3 billion. -

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