Avidiant Consulting Group is expanding its reach beyondstart-ups, mid-cap com-panies and banks to include an area on thefront burner for many credit unions: risk management.

The Dallas-based business consulting firm said it will offercredit unions risk management services along with strate-gicplanning, management consulting and regulatory compliance.

"The crash of the U.S. housing bubble along with a deterioratinglabor market have brought on big challenges to credit unions whereloan delinquen-cies, bankruptcies, repossessions and loancharge-offs are at an all time high," said Christopher Garcia,principal at Avidiant.