ONTARIO, Calif. – The industry's largest credit union ATM network and the nation's second largest corporate have hooked up in an EFT deal. The CO-OP Network and the $9 billion Southwest Corporate FCU, Dallas, formed a partnership where the CO-OP will provide processing and networking services to credit unions in Southwest Corporate's ATM/debit program. For a corporate, Southwest has a unique presence in its members `ATM/debit usage. Its ATM/debit program includes online or PBF processing, a neural network, card ordering, chargebacks, and standard or custom cards. It also provides access to regional and national ATM networks. With CO-OP stepping in, credit unions using Southwest's program will now have access to CO-OP Network's 17,000 surcharge-free ATMs in the U.S. and Canada. Prior to this deal, Southwest had a contract with eFunds to drive its ATMs. That will expire and CO-OP will assume that role. This deal is part of CO-OP's plans to expand its presence in the south. It opened an office in Dallas in 2001. "In essence Southwest will continue to provide back-office service and support in their area, we'll provide network access and processing for all of their clients," said CO-OP CEO Bob Rose. Rose said this deal gives the CO-OP a very large presence in Texas. It brings to the network 192 credit unions that have approximately 100 ATMs "It's one of the regions we were trying to build our profile in. Texas has some unique laws and rules in terms of doing a lot of things. They didn't allow home equity lines of credit until recently and for some reason they don't do deposit sharing, which is one of our big selling points," said Rose, who hopes CO-OP can help spur some more deposit sharing among CUs. "That's an advantage we have because credit unions don't have the branches that banks do." [email protected]