LIBERTY LAKE, Wash.–Following the closing of its fiscal 2017, CU*Northwest is reporting its record year not only allowed it to pay its budgeted return, but to also add a “bonus return.”
In addition, its stock price rose by 6% and as announced in 2017, all customers had multiple fees reduced on their September invoices.
CU*NorthWest is a CUSO and is structured as a pure cooperative and mirrors the governance model of credit unions in nearly every way, the company said in a statement.
“I am so proud of our board and the cooperative spirit they displayed in this process,” said Greg Smith, CU*NorthWest CEO. “They not only took care of stockholders, but also recognized the non-stockholder customers, as we have always believed that paying a monthly invoice is also a function of investment in our firm.”
The company said CU*BASE GOLD is the only core processing solution available from a cooperative CUSO. CU*NorthWest and founding partner CU*Answers are nearly identical in structure and approach and continue to work together as a part of the larger cuasterisk.com national network of credit unions and CUSOs, CU*Northwest said.
Separately, CU*Northwest reported that one of the credit unions on its system, Cheney Federal Credit Union in Cheney, Wash., was able to pick up operations at another CU, when an uncapped conduit pipe caused flooding in its electrical room. The flooding meant a loss of phones and Internet.
Staff of Cheney Federal Credit Union were able to relocate to the Spokane Valley location of Primesource Credit Union. Primesource offered a workstation at their facility and since both credit unions use CU*Northwest, it was simple, the company said.
“We both use CU*NorthWest for data processing and the software lends itself to these kinds of collaborative efforts,” said Margaret Burkholtz, CEO at Primesource Credit Union. “There was no moving of computers or re-loading software or anything like that. They just came and logged in through the community network.”
The technology piece of this puzzle was the easy piece Cheney CEO JoAn Sanders agreed. “CU*NorthWest made it look easy. We could access our member’s data, print out receipts, create and fund loans, run reports and cut checks – virtually anything the member needed. The bottom line is our members were served.”