Several thousand BECU mobile bankers have now been directed from their BlackBerry and Android apps to the big credit union's browser-based mobile service while new apps are being built.

Howie Wu, vice president of virtual banking at the $9.7 billion Seattle institution, said Tuesday the move was made necessary by the exit of its mobile banking vendor Firethorn from the market.

BECU is now working with another vendor, ClairMail, to produce new apps for the BlackBerry and Android platforms and expects to have those available by the end of the first quarter, Wu said.

He said BECU already went live in August with a ClairMail app for iPhones, which includes more than 40,000 of the credit union's mobile bankers, about 90% of the total mobile banking population at the 720,000-member BECU, Wu said.

“We decided to focus on building our new iPhone app first since that was our largest user base,” Wu said. “We would have included Android, however given the short notice we were given by our third- party vendor Firethorn of their closure we could not get both apps ready by the end of the year.”

Any member with a smartphone or tablet can access the credit union's mobile website at m.becu.org.