ONTARIO, Calif.-The California and Nevada CU League is making compliance the initial focus of its CU Roots CUSO.
CURoots was recently formed to examine CU back office needs, providing support for non-member facing functions that often require in-house expertise. "The initial service will be compliance," said Rita Fillingane, director of research and information. "We will provide a compliance officer that can be shared by credit unions. A small CU may just need someone to come in an hour or two a week."
CURoots has one compliance officer now and the league expects the individual will support two to three CUs per week. "We will expand the compliance staff when demand is there," said Fillingane, who would not share the cost for the service. "It has yet to be determined, but it will be priced as a service to credit unions, not as a revenue generator.
Just over 20 small CUs have expressed interest in the compliance service that will launch Jan. 1, 2011.
The league, which also houses the Shapiro Group, a resource for small credit unions, has seen activity jump on its compliance and Shapiro list-serves in the last year. Chris Collver, senior regulatory and legislative analyst, noted that a group of over 300 credit unions, most in Southern California, are participating in a credit union "compliance professional" group that meets monthly to share compliance knowledge, talk about compliance issues, and to listen to a speaker. "Anywhere form 50 to 90 people attend monthly," Collver said.
