CO-OP Financial Services annual shareholder dividend pool totaled $53.3 million for 2015, the highest annual dividend recorded by a credit union service organization for its owner credit unions, the company announced Wednesday.
The Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.-based credit union service organization, which has 3,500 institutions and 60 million account holders in its network, said the patronage is partly the result of its sale during 2015 of the majority of its investment in Ensenta Corporation of Redwood Shores, Calif., a provider of self-service and image solutions that holds four patents for its image-capture capabilities.
“We were able to apply some gains from the sale of Ensenta stock for shareholder patronage, and at the same time maintain a board seat to influence product development direction for the good of credit unions,” Stan Hollen, president and chief executive of CO-OP, said in a statement. “The transaction was among many milestones for CO-OP that made the past year among the most eventful in the company’s history, all of which contributed to a record patronage and maximum return on value for our shareholders.”
In 2015, CO-OP acquired Covera Solutions in Albany, N.Y., a subsidiary of the New York Credit Union Association, as well as the shares of Everlink Payment Services, giving CO-OP majority ownership of the Markham, Canada-based payments services provider to credit unions and banks in Canada.
CO-OP established a new annual record in 2015, processing 3.2 billion electronic funds transfer and shared branch transactions for credit union members, a 6.6% increase over the previous year.
