This column is designed to do just one thing-bring to light some stunning stats and figures I've noticed in recent weeks, each one telling a bigger story.

* Out in Washington, the $6.4 billion BECU made 61 SBA loans totaling $6 million in May. Wow! That ranked it below Bank of America, but ahead of Washington Mutual in the state of Washington for SBA lending. Impressive. A lot of former Boeing employees starting businesses?

* Fiserv's seven credit union data processing subsidiaries-XP Systems, CUSA Technologies, USERS, Summit, Galaxy, IntegraSys and AFTECH-together have 2,800 credit union processing clients!!! That's one-third of the entire credit union marketplace. For years, people have said Fiserv has too many CU data processing units and will surely consolidate some of them. From what I hear that's not in the plans any time soon, and why should it? Things are obviously working. What the groups need to do is share more products across company lines, which is starting to happen more and more. A bonus number for Fiserv-140. The company has done approximately 140 acquisitions to become the multi-billion dollar firm it is today.