A deal announced last week between the Harvard Alumni Association and the 31,000-member $409 million Harvard University Employees Credit Union has guaranteed that at least 4,500 alumni of the university will carry the credit union's credit card.

The Cambridge, Mass., credit union is the latest in what has become a trend of credit unions getting into the market for affinity card issuing, whether by capturing affinity organizations from banks, adopting them after a bank broke off a relationship or launching affinity card programs with new partners.

HUECU beat out bids from several other firms to both purchase the existing affinity portfolio from Barclays Bank and set up a new affinity program, according to the credit union and it did because of, not in spite of, being a credit union.

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Credit Union Management
Payments/Credit/Debit