"Competition and member service demands have raised credit unions' table stakes," said AFTECH President Joe Antellocy said. "Clients like Sun East are well positioned to thrive with an adaptive servicing platform and a strong member value proposition."

AFTECH has about 80 core processing clients and is a business unit of Fiserv based in King of Prussia, Pa.

BECU Adds Five Years to Open Solutions Pact

TUKWILA, Wash. -- BECU has extended its contract with its Open Solutions Inc. for five more years.

BECU made headlines when it converted to the Open Solutions relational data core processing platform in a single weekend in November 2002 in what was called the largest such technology conversion ever in credit union land.

A series of other integrated systems launches followed and since then, the $7.6 billion CU has doubled its asset size, expanded to more than 40 branches and now has more than a half million members.

BECU also was one of the first of a series of major credit union signings that helped make Connecticut-based Open Solutions a major player in technology services for community financial institutions.

"After an assessment of alternatives, we determined that Open Solutions continues to offer a solution that is capable of addressing our growth and long-standing goals," says BECU CIO Butch Leonardson. "The openness of their technology, integration capabilities and future plans for the product continues to supports our long-term IT strategy."

IMM Packages TotaleAtlas with fiVISION MRM Suite

LINDEN, N.J. -- Integrated Media Management (IMM) is now integrating its document management tools with the member relationship software suite from Financial Vision LLC.

The strategic partnership allows credit unions to use IMM's TotaleAtlas solution to receive XML data from the fiVISION MRM platform, including online enrollment and funding information that is then presented to the user as a populated document.

The document can then be digitally signed and stored as an encrypted PDF for the member to print at the time of signing or later.

Financial Vision LLC is an Indianapolis-based CUSO. Its memberWORKS platform includes service, sales and new member account tools.

IMM specializes in document output management and has more than 600 financial institution clients nationwide.

Generations CU Switching to EPL

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Generations Credit Union is converting its core processing to the i-POWER online system from EPL Inc.

The $24.6 million CU also will be using Birmingham, Ala.-based EPL's home banking, bill pay, LoansPQ, collections, Web design and hosting services and dashboard solutions.

Generations CU currently is a Symitar client, according to the NCUA Web site.

Credit union-owned EPL has more than a hundred clients nationwide, the

company says.

Summit Information Systems Opens Canadian Center

BURNABY, British Columbia -- Summit Information Systems has solidified its move into the Canadian market by opening up a new data and operations center in the British Columbia town of Burnaby, near Vancouver.

The center will provide training and educational programs, consulting, product development and integration services along with support for the iSpectrum processing platform from the Oregon-based Fiserv unit.

The staff has more than 250 years of collective credit union experience "with expertise in every level of credit union operations, product design, service bureau operations and business process engineering," says Clive Raher, director of the Summit Burnaby operations center.

"The expertise of our staff and the quality of our facility demonstrate our ongoing commitment to providing the personalized service Canadian credit unions should expect from their technology partner," says Kevin Sparks, Summit president.

Summit joins Open Solutions Inc. among U.S. core processors committing to the Canadian credit union space. The Connecticut-based company has made several acquisitions that established its presence here.

USERS Holds Annual EdCon

VALLEY FORGE, Pa. -- USERS Inc. says more than 400 people attended the recent EdCon 2007, its 24th annual educational conference, held this year at the Hyatt Grand Champions in Indian Wells, Calif.

The Fiserv core processing unit's management team provided overviews of USERS' corporate and technology initiatives at the conference, which included a demonstration of the first prototype software using USERS' new business-driven technology architecture.

There also were 40 educational sessions on topics such as anti-money laundering, regulatory compliance, the virtual branch concept, business process management and MRM tools.

A product fair included Fiserv group offerings such as CredAccess credit reporting, Paytraxx bill pay, EFT products and the Wisdom and IPS-Sendero financial management solutions.

Fairwinds CU Goes with AT&T

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Fairwinds Credit Union will be depending on AT&T to move data and voice between its Orlando headquarters and 32 branches around the Sunshine State.

The $1.5 billion CU has signed a three-year contract for IP-enabled virtual private network services from the telecommunications giant. The new MPLS network provides expanded bandwidth and backup features, the company says.

"We needed a cost-efficient, meshed network platform that would be able to ensure business continuity," said Charlie Lai, Fairwinds CIO.