CU Partnerships Bring Tech Ed Loans & New Small Business Solutions
Nutmeg State FCU's partership with a local tech school has become so successful the CU is "now their preferred loan provider for students.”
A couple of recent technology-related credit union announcements include a Connecticut institution collaborating with a tech school to offer education loans and a Missouri credit union stepping up its merchant-relationship game.
The $449 million Rocky Hill, Conn.-based Nutmeg State Financial Credit Union announced a new partnership with Porter and Chester Institute, a technical school with locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, to offer education loans to its students. The partnership results from a previous collaboration between the two businesses that created an opportunity to help students get a quality education.
“The foundation of our partnership with Porter and Chester started early last year when we first established a banking relationship with the school,” John Holt, president and CEO of Nutmeg State FCU, said. “I’m happy to say that since then, our relationship with them has developed so much that we are now their preferred loan provider for students.”
As a part of their partnership, the credit union is also leveraging its custom technology to streamline their application process for education loans.
“With Nutmeg, our students now have access to an exclusive application that allows for a fast and efficient loan experience,” Jim Bologa, president and CEO of Porter and Chester, said. “Students are already using this method to apply for loans and have been receiving responses very quickly.”
Brookfield, Wis.-based payments and fintech provider Fiserv announced that more than 50 financial institutions that utilize a Fiserv core processing platform added merchant solutions to their portfolio between the late July combination of Fiserv and First Data and the end of 2019.
According to Fiserv, pairing a merchant offering alongside core technology from Fiserv allows financial institution to better identify business banking opportunities, enable digital enrollment for merchant solutions, and deliver differentiated value to small and mid-sized businesses through the cloud-based Clover platform from First Data, now Fiserv.
The $106 million Warrensburg, Mo.-based Central Missouri Community Credit Union, a Fiserv core processing client for more than 30 years, also signed on for merchant solutions. “Adding merchant solutions from Fiserv will enable us to offer significant new value to our members who own and operate small businesses in our community,” Carol White, CEO, CMCCU, said. “Payment acceptance is the lifeblood of small businesses, and we look forward to partnering with those small business owners in their future success.”
According to Fiserv, its acquisition of First Data allowed the combination of the two companies to build end-to-end solutions spanning the value chain of payments. This includes merchant opportunity analysis, where financial institutions can pull data from their core processing platforms to identify small business customers accepting debit and credit card payments; digital merchant enrollment, an integrated merchant services enrollment portal that sits within the financial institution’s website; access to Clover, a cloud-based point-of-sale platform for small and mid-sized businesses; and integration with core and digital banking solutions, which allows merchant customers to see their business’ real-time payment data within their cash flow management dashboard.