Co-op Solutions Rebranding Comes From Internal Changes

CO-OP Financial Services, the payments CUSO based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., has become Co-op Solutions.

Co-op rolled out its new name and logo on the opening day of the CUNA Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC) on Sunday.

Todd Clark, who became president/CEO of Co-op Solutions in 2016, said the changes represent the CUSO’s evolution.

“Over the last few years we have aggressively invested in the company to produce a payments and financial technology platform for credit unions and their members, bringing us to a rebranding as Co-op Solutions,” Clark said.

“It’s a change on the outside that better captures the change that has taken place on the inside,” he said.

Co-op has adopted “Make every experience matter” as its credo, which is supported by a new corporate mission statement: “To connect credit unions to the technology, strategic partnership and scale they need to best serve their members now and into the future.”

Clark said members want to choose when and how they make transactions, and expect them to be simple, secure and satisfying.

“Each time a member pays for something, it is an experience that matters — bringing that member into a closer relationship with their credit union,” Clark said. “Through our work, we help ensure that credit unions stay relevant and competitive, and create opportunity for them tailored to a demanding and crowded marketplace.”

Samantha Paxson, Co-op’s chief experience officer, said the rapid rise of PayPal, Venmo and other payment fintechs has cost credit unions market share.

“We’re seeing dramatic shifts in the way consumers are engaging with financial institutions,” she said. “Co-op saw this and saw it as an opportunity to help credit unions meet the market.”

For years, the CUSO was primarily an aggregator of technologies developed by other companies. It offered its ATM network, a shared branch network and sold debit and point-of-sale services through partner companies to get better prices for credit unions.

Since Clark became CEO, Paxson said the CUSO has been investing heavily to allow the CUSO to evolve into a provider of a payments and technology platform.

“We’ve moved from a seller of products and solutions to a payments and technology platform.” This “ecosystem,” she said, “integrates the expense of building that technology for credit unions so they can swiftly add on new solutions to help meet that market need.”

“This is where the financial technology providers in this space — the Venmos and the SoFis of the world — are winning share.”

Paxson said the new name, new logo and other changes people will see from the rebranding reflects those changes that have been happening inside the CUSO.

“We wanted to signal to the market that we have arrived,” she said. “We have become that solutions provider and technology ecosystem that credit unions need to connect to their market and build market share.”

“Co-op’s vision is to be the provider to help deliver that technology, and to help credit unions be the most essential resource in people’s financial lives.”

While the new name retires the use of ALL-CAPS in the name, it retains that style in the logo. In a news release, the CUSO said rendering the name “Co-op” in regular text invokes the word cooperative, which it said is core to Co-op’s business as a provider owned by more than 900 shareholding institutions and servicing 85% of the nation’s credit unions.

Co-op said the new branding will require no immediate changes from its clients. Signage for Co-op’s consumer-facing services — its 30,000-strong ATM network and 5,700-location shared branch network — remains unchanged at this time.