Said NCUA in a statement, "NCUA has determined that the most effective course of action is to pursue an orderly wind-down of those services from U.S. Central Bridge."
Added NCUA Board Chairman Debbie Matz in the statement: "The proposals we received from other bidders did not meet NCUA's responsibility to minimize service disruptions and impose the lowest possible cost."
The regulator stressed: "Each corporate credit union, if it has not already done so, now needs to begin the process of transferring to a vendor that will replace U.S. Central Bridge's APEX system in order to continue uninterrupted payment services to member credit unions."
Earlier it had been rumored that Fiserv Inc. and Lending Tools were actively bidding for the U.S. Central payments lines of business. Neither company confirmed their interest to this publication.
Recently, Lending Tools had disclosed it was aggressively pursuing "binding agreements" with a "significant" number of corporate credit unions. Observers interpreted that as an indication that the Wichita, Kan.-based payments company was no longer pursuing its bid for US Central.
Impacts of NCUA's decision to "wind down" these portions of U.S. Central may be sizable on some corporates that had made heavy use of U.S. Central.
Those same corporates had, earlier this year, tried but failed to form a new entity to take over the U.S. Central payments business.
In making its announcement regarding U.S. Central, the regulator did not provide a timeline. Earlier this year, however, it had promised "uninterrupted service" from the bridge.
On Dec. 15, the agency said it had awarded U.S. Central's online and mobile bill pay business – Corporate Network eCom – to CO-OP Financial Services.
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