ONTARIO, Calif. — Aiming to ratchet down credit union costs of maintaining and servicing ATMs is the goal that led to a partnership between CO-OP Financial Services and CU Anytime, which the two organizations said would lead to an ATM servicing CUSO. CU Anytime is an ATM network with 29 New Mexico credit unions and 168 ATMs in New Mexico along with some in parts of California and Texas. CO-OP Financial Services is the parent cooperative of the credit union owned CO-OP Network. CU Anytime's credit unions are already CO-OP Network members. "We've been working with CO-OP management for more than a year to explore methods to expand our relationship," said Don Gray, president of CU Anytime. "I'm pleased to report the new agreement provides an opportunity to leverage our staff and service model to benefit more credit unions."
The new CUSO will be called CO-OP ATM Services and will be jointly owned by the two organizations.
The services being developed include cash services (armored carriers), first-line maintenance (not requiring repair, such as jammed cards or running out of paper), second-line maintenance (requiring a technician), as well as ATM purchasing placement and installation. Another recently developed service is the proofing, balancing and clearing of imaged ATM deposits through Check Imaging, with a first-half 2007 rollout planned for 7-Eleven and its nearly 2,000 CO-OP-branded Vcom ATMs.
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"The Dove ATM Deployer Study indicates credit unions have relatively higher costs of ATM ownership," said Stan Hollen, CEO of CO-OP Financial Services. "This joint venture is a distinct opportunity for CO-OP to utilize portions of the outstanding CU Anytime service and our aggregation model to bring economies of scale to our members around the country."
Jim Hanisch, executive vice president with CO-OP, said that CO-OP had been attracted to the very good job and business model that CU Anytime has for servicing and maintaining ATMs and believes that other credit unions could benefit from it with economies of scale and aggregation.
The new partnership is scheduled to get underway April 1. –[email protected]
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