Despite the retailer's lofty rhetoric about aiding consumers caught by the scourge of high interest payday lenders, Wal-Mart's goal, argued Blake, is to make a profit "and get consumers to spend money in their stores."

Like other CU leaders in Massachusetts and across New England, Blake is joining a series of REAL Solutions organization meetings set up this month by "field coaches" hired by NCUF last January to guide CUs in selecting the right payday, check and savings products.

The product selection, said NCUF, is based on those which have the most appeal in given "low-wealth" markets.

As for Wal-Mart, Lois Kitsch, national program manager for REAL Solutions, said the nation's largest retailer may provide consumers "a cheaper and probably faster option" of obtaining limited financial services but in the long run "credit unions can and should be doing it better."

Through REAL Solutions, participating CUs can offer similar product menus "at even lower prices."

Plus, "credit unions can and are helping these same members move into other more traditional products such as savings or lower cost consumer loans," she said.

Among the NCUF field coaches hired for REAL Solutions to arrange CU meetings in New England is Mark Lynch of Sault St. Marie, Mich. a former resources manager for the Credit Union Foundation of Australia in Sydney.

"The desire in all of my states has been for payday alternatives," said Lynch, noting the initial "partnership" meetings with groups of CU executives are set for July 24 in Hartford, Conn.; July 25 in Marlboro, Mass, and July 26 in Manchester, N.H.

Helping to arrange those meetings are the MCUL, and the Connecticut and New Hampshire Credit Union Leagues with the Rhode Island League to participate later.

Another NCUF coach, Melissa Farley of Lynchburg, Va. said she has had several meetings with CU executives in New York and Oklahoma, her two assigned states and so far CU needs have been "quite different" with requests made for savings products as well as payday alternatives.

The CU participants, she said, are eager for more statistical information forecasting more CUs across the U.S. would join the program though for now "credit unions are hesitant preferring some one else to start it first."

Farley, who runs her own CU consulting firm, said she has met three times in Oklahoma with visits in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and Stroud organized by the Oklahoma Credit Union League plus sessions in Albany put together by the New York State Bankers Association.

Kitsch said all of the REAL Solutions activity in recent months has created a backlog of work for the field coaches and leagues and so now "we have to slow the expansion down a bit."

A big reason for putting on the brakes is to meet demands of the CUs and leagues for research and advice on the products which have included everything from the payday alternatives and check cashing to tax preparation and service for Hispanics and other immigrants.

When NCUF took over REAL Solutions administration last December, there were five leagues participating, she said. In the first half of this year, 12 more signed and "five or six more are slated to come on board in early 2008," she said.

"There are 33 leagues targeted by the end of 2009," she concluded.

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