Four Washington credit unions have come together to form a new regulatory compliance CUSO.
The Northwest CU Collaboration was created by the $1.1 billion Gesa Credit Union in Richland, $452 million iQ Credit Union in Vancouver, $346 million Salal Credit Union in Seattle and $1.7 billion Washington State Employees Credit Union in Olympia.
The first general areas of focus for the CUSO may include compliance training for staff; compliance reviews for marketing materials, legal reviews, vendor reviews and compliance audits, according to the credit unions.
In addition, the partners said they foresee the potential for other joint services beyond compliance and other credit unions eventually may be offered opportunities to use the CUSO's services.
WSECU said it convened a roundtable group of Washington credit unions in 2010 to research the viability of leveraging shared resources to meet the industry's growing compliance needs. Following a period of research and analysis, the final four credit unions committed to participate and provide initial funding for the partnership.
The new CUSO is a limited liability corporation and will be a jointly owned subsidiary of the four credit unions.
The partnership hired attorney and credit union veteran Terri Salinas as its first employee and director. Salinas comes to the partnership from the $10 billion Boeing Employees Credit Union in Tukwila, Wash., where she served as corporate counsel for compliance issues. She previously worked as vice president of risk management for Gesa.
As director, Salinas will be responsible for creating the business plan and structure for the new CUSO, which will have a board of managers comprising representatives from the four credit unions, according to the partners.
Northwest CU Collaboration CUSO is scheduled to be operational in the third quarter of 2012.
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