A $9 million Seattle credit union said it will be able to better serve low- to moderate-income residents of King County now that it has upgraded to Open Solutions' flagship core processing platform.

Express CU, working with $8.7 billion BECU, recently deployed The Complete Credit Union Solution-sme, an upgrade from its former enterprise platform, an SOSystems solution acquired by Open Solutions in 2005.

Open Solutions donated a portion of the upgrade and licensing fee.

"Open Solutions has a long-standing relationship with BECU, so when they approached us about ECU's initiative to provide banking services to an underserved community, we were more than happy to donate our technology," said Ross Curtis, the Connecticut company's group executive vice president for North America.

In addition to expanded products, the new platform will enable ECU to reach out in a mobile environment. For instance, the credit union staffers visit 16 different social service agency locations to help people open accounts, make deposits and apply for small loans.