Arrowhead's new Member Business Services CUSO to service other CUs' business products

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Any credit union that offers member business services knows the cost and expertise that’s required to support the product. Arrowhead Credit Union has opened the doors to its newest CUSO – Member Business Services – this month to assist other CUs with providing their members a full line of business lending and deposit services without assuming the cost and expertise burden of forming their own commercial loan department. MBS President Steve von Rajcs said the new CUSO “illustrates a new strategy in the credit union movement.” Most credit unions focus on one area of commercial services, usually the lending side, he explained. “But business deposit services are critical if you want to get business loans,” said von Rajcs. “We want to be able to say we can do everything for you – offer lines of credit, deposits, loans, whatever your business needs. We want to be the back room commercial loan administrators for other credit unions so they don’t have to support the infrastructure of doing it themselves.” Arrowhead CU started its commercial lending group in 1996. MBS’ turnkey program provides several types of commercial loan services besides a business deposit services program, including SBA 504 and 71, Term Loan, Lines of Credit and Commercial Real Estate Loan. So far, MBS is concentrating on servicing credit unions in California, but von Rajcs said the CUSO would be willing to talk with credit unions in other states. At press time, he expected one CU to sign up for services by the end of January. In related news, von Rajcs said Arrowhead’s plan to open a bank in a couple of years has been put on hold. He said the “regulatory environment wasn’t conducive” to the plan. Arrowhead counts over 131,000 members in the Inland Empire. It has more than $670 million in assets. [email protected]