The Mountain West Credit Union Association said Monday it willpurchase an ownership share of Plexcity,an Ontario, Calif.-based CUSO founded to consolidate andcut the costs of back office operations.

The Mountain West association comes on board with five othertrade organization co-owners including the California and NevadaCredit Union Leagues, New Jersey Credit Union League, Maryland-D.C.Credit Union Association, Ohio Credit Union League and HawaiiCredit Union League.

Plexcity also serves NASCUS as a non-owner client.

“Plexcity's solutions will translate into higher economies ofscale, eliminate redundancies, allow for speedier and moreefficient operations through a cloud-based portal, and help ourassociation direct its full attention to serving member creditunions,” Mountain West President/CEO Scott Earl said.

Plexcity,which officially opened for business on Jan. 1, 2015, reducesoperational costs by standardizing the leagues' back officefunctions of IT, accounting/finance and human resources, which aremanaged from the same technology platform.

Each league that joins Plexcity pays an initial share investmentof $30,000. However, how much each league pays for Plexcity'songoing operations is determined by the amount of hours andpersonnel it uses for IT, HR and accounting/finance needs.

“The immediate effect of decreasing their expensescontributes to our members' future stability,” Plexcity CEO TonyKitt said. “All of our owners believe we are better at driving downcosts together than we are individually.”

If Plexcity continues to be successful in attracting moremembers – something that will create more scale – Kitt said in anOctober 2015 CU Times interview the savings should farexceed the 10% seen in the organization's first year ofoperation.

Other trade organizations also have initiated collaborativeprojects to lower the costs of back office operations and otherservices.

In October 2015, the League of Southeastern Credit Unions and the New York Credit UnionAssociation agreed to establish a jointly owned subsidiary toconsolidate their back-office operations.

In addition, the subsidiary will offer services incommunications, education, training and product development thatare not state specific.

Both trade associations will continue to independently operatetheir local, state and federal advocacy programs as well asmembership relationship activities.

This collaborative project is expected to take two to threeyears to fully implement.