Growing Credit Unions

CU*SOUTH Expands to Stonebrook Executive Park

Our lobby atrium overlooks the peaceful, wooded Stonebrook Executive Park.

Leo Vaulin,  our CEO,  is delighted to announce the purchase of a 11,000 square foot office building on the Stonebrook campus in Fairhope, Alabama. The deal closed in early winter, and we’ve been renovating and sprucing up ever since.

“As more credit unions select CU*SOUTH for their core data processing and Managed Services, we have experienced a rapidly growing need for additional space to house our staff and provide conference and training facilities for our clients and owners,” Vaulin says. The new building will support upwards of 40 staffers, in line with CU*South’s continued addition of more employees in response to the growth.

CU*South will double the number of credit union members served by CU*Base and Managed Services offerings by the end of 2011.

CU*South’s Managed Services division, headed by VP Roxanne Bradley, was created out of the expressed need of several short-staffed credit unions for more hands-on back office, accounting, compliance, lending and collections support. “The response has been phenomenal,” commented Bradley. “We are really partnered with our credit union clients in providing mentoring and training, as well as these services.”

The client-partnership focus of CU*South was a major factor in the selection of the new office space.

“We have two training and conference rooms we are renovating to not only serve CU*South’s needs, but to make available to our CUSO family of credit unions,” Vaulin emphasized. “We want them to think of it as a remote office when they need a larger space to accommodate meetings or training.” Ten minutes south of I-10, on Mobile’s scenic Eastern Shore, the new location is convenient for local clients and easy for new ones to find.

The amenities provided by Mobile Bay and the Eastern Shore communities will also appeal to CU*South’s out-of-town clients; meetings in the daytime on our serene, wooded campus and delicious local seafood at night…with perhaps an afternoon carved out for a round of golf or boating!

The building has four suites to accommodate the growth Vaulin, Bradley and Director of Business Development Mark Bohdanyk have forecast for CU*South. The suites which needed the least work will be ready in June for the move, with one still undergoing renovation and another occupied by a short-term tenant.

With the current Mobile office bursting at the seams, all of us at CU*South are anxious to get moved into our beautiful new building!

To find out more about our exceptional Data Processing platform, or Managed Services, please contact Director of Business Development Mark Bohdanyk, 1-800-293-7554 (email mbohdanyk@cusouth.com) or VP Roxanne Bradley, 1-800-293-7554 (email rbradley@cusouth.com)

Posted on May 31, 2011 by eparker
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“Kindle-ing” An Appetite for Mobile Banking

The Kindle e-Reader

In keeping with CU*South’s positively evangelical dedication to the rapidly expanding “paperless” communications future, CU*South Sales Manager Mark Bohdanyk awarded two Kindle reading devices in a drawing at the Arkansas League Meeting last month in Hot Springs.

 CU*South exhibited to twenty-six credit unions during the meeting, and the Kindles were won by Sharon Hearnsberger, CEO of Henderson State University FCU and Casper Nehus, Board Member of Little Rock VA Credit Union. Congratulations!

“It’s a great way to introduce the concept of migrating tasks we associate with paper onto a digital device,” said Leo Vaulin, CEO of CU*South, in regard to the promotion. “It’s also easy and fun, for people who might be hesitant about new technologies beyond the standard cell phone functions they’ve grown comfortable using.”

Familiarity with an e-reader is one step closer to using “smart” phones and devices like iPads, and e-reader retailers Barnes and Noble are already building in broader applications to their Nook product.

CU*South’s emphasis on using paperless technology and online resources stems from Vaulin’s belief that online banking with the It’s Me 24/7 software levels the playing field for smaller credit unions to affordably provide more services to members in an application members are increasingly looking for.  

“We want to get our users comfortable with online banking, and the first step is winning over the managers. Once the managers discover how It’s Me 24/7 makes their lives easier, they want to make sure their members have this application, too,” Vaulin added. “And we help them do that.”  

To find out more about how CU*South can help your credit union with Mobile or Web Banking, Data Processing Services or our Managed Services division, call or email Mark Bohdanyk: 1-800-293-7554, or mbohdanyk@cusouth.com   

Posted on May 13, 2011 by eparker
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Congratulations iPad Winner Jay Flanagan!

Chartered in 1936, EFFCU is located in New Jersey.

CU*South is delighted to announce our latest quarterly iPad winner, Jay Flanagan of Elizabeth Firemen’s Federal Credit Union!

We really do give these things away, and with pleasure. The iPad is a perfect way to run the It’s Me! 24/7 mobile banking platform that we love so much. We think you’ll love it, too, when you see it in action.

Sign up for our monthly newsletter and you’ll be entered to win the iPad. Or enter via twitter by sending a direct message to @CUSouth. For more info about It’s Me! 24/7 or our other services, call us at 1-800-293-7554.

 

Posted on April 12, 2011 by eparker
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Roxanne Bradley Promoted to VP of Business Operations

It gives CU*South great pleasure to announce that Roxanne Bradley has been promoted to Vice President of Business Operations. And not a moment too soon — This promotion comes as CU*South doubles its client base in 2011, and continues its rapid expansion in the credit union industry. Ms. Bradley has been a integral part of that success.

While serving as Controller for CU*South’s internal accounting department and managing human resources, Ms. Bradley also developed and implemented the highly successful Managed Services division.  Managed Services, as directed by Bradley, functions as the back office, accounting or collections department for credit unions — allowing managers to “co-source” the work to Bradley’s team, who focus the skills they’ve learned from our years of serving credit unions specifically toward these tasks. Understaffed credit unions, or those credit unions finding themselves in need of extra hands and experience, increasingly turn to CU*South’s Managed Services for temporary or long term help.

Bradley’s ten year career with CU*South has been highlighted by consistently excellent management and leadership talents.

Ms. Bradley’s objective in her new post is to provide mentoring and guidance to managers and staff, implement improved processes and methods to optimize workflow, and to create and develop strategies to help our business expand while continuing our CUSO-oriented focus on growing credit unions.

“My ten years of working with our credit unions has given me a sense of community that I think is the cornerstone of our business,” said Ms. Bradley. “I’m excited about further opportunities to help advance the CUSO vision for the company.”

Actual photo of Roxanne Bradley, whipping through tasks for her Managed Services clients.

Ms. Bradley has over 35 years of professional experience, from manufacturing and distribution to non-profit and city government. Her diverse and wide-ranging  knowledge makes her particularly qualified to lead our Client Services, Operations and Managed Services teams toward their goals and objectives during this very exciting growth phase at CU*South.

If you would like to know more about CU*South’s Managed Services Division, feel free to email Roxanne Bradley at rbradley@cusouth.com or call us at 1-800-293-7554.

Posted on April 5, 2011 by eparker
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Managed Services — Organically CUSO

CU*South’s Managed Services Division is growing organically in the truest sense of the word; you wanted it, we started it, everybody’s benefitting.

Tweet me with some TMI.

Just this week, our Managed Services Collection’s star, Ashley Beard, put together a “best practices” handbook about utilizing social media — the public sharing of information that can greatly help credit unions in their skip tracing efforts — after researching the regulations and laws. If you’ve looked into it, you know what a feat that is; the governance is spread out in bits and pieces all across the internet. Ashley pulled it all together into one go-to document, tracked down some online training, and then put what she learned into practice as lead collector for our credit union, Tri-Rivers FCU of Montgomery.

We’ve mentioned Tri-Rivers quite a bit because of the outstanding results of our collabortion in collections –under the leadership of Managed Services Collections manager Rebecca Weemes, Tri-Rivers was reporting .59% delinquency on their 5300 as of yesterday. This time last year, that number was 4.18% — not only a dramatic change worthy of much praise, but additionally they did it without dropping their average yield of 10.9%! 

We prefer to call it co-sourcing.

VP of Business Operations Roxanne Bradley has also revamped her baby, Back Office and Bookkeeping Services, in response to demand. What started as a small offering for a handful of our overworked credit unions to relieve some pressure on their staff has grown, under Roxanne’s management, into a thriving division that provides our credit union clients with 24/7 access to professional bookkeeping services and an expert staff with years of combined experience specifically honed in the credit union arena.

It’s particularly popular among managers, especially in smaller credit unions where the back office, daily balancing, accounting and other tasks often fall on their shoulders.

Like our successful Collections division, Back Office and Bookkeeping Services help our credit unions’ bottom lines. Co-sourcing is a perfect CUSO fit because we serve the needs of several clients at one time, and this saves credit unions money. We also know how to streamline the procedures and functions to do it quickly and efficiently.

Managed Services are also targeted, as they have been from day one, to fit the client and not the other way around.

That means CU*South can step in for an employee on leave, or one who is ill, on temporary assignment and in a specific capacity — or we can function as your back office or bookkeeper for as long as it meets your needs. That’s how our clients have directed the growth of Managed Services, and we’re sticking with it.

If you’d like to learn more about our Managed Services Division, we’d love to talk about what CU*South can do to help your credit union. Please email Roxanne Bradley at rbradley@cusouth.com or take a look: MS Back Office and Bookkeeping Services

Posted on April 1, 2011 by eparker
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