WARRENVILLE, Ill. - Primary Financial's expansion of its SimpliCD product could be the biggest thing to hit credit union business development efforts since HR 1151, according to Mike Lee, President of Member United Corporate FCU's Midwest region.

"Credit unions have limited relationships with SEGs, because they don't have full array of products and services to offer them," Lee said. "This is a great product to open doors, something they're not going to find anywhere else."

SimpliCD maintains a proprietary database of institutional certificate offerings, matching them with investors searching for insured deposits. The selling point is SimpliCD's ability to manage several certificates at once for each investor, tracking interest payments, maturity dates, and making sure each account remains under federally insured maximums.

Only one other organization in the banking industry offers a similar product, Lee said, which means credit unions have a unique opportunity to leverage it to their advantage.

"For example, many credit unions have a university in their names, but have never had a reason to go talk to the endowment office," he said. "What a great reason to approach a key SEG and pitch a product that two years ago, most investment groups would not have considered."

Members United, SimpliCD's top selling corporate, sold $2 billion worth of the certificates to its members in 2008, he said.