Credit Cards Veterans Vie For CUMarket

SALT LAKE CITY - (01/24/06) – Monday’s announcementthat Wescom CU is starting its own credit card bank for creditunions means that two credit card veterans will soon be competingfor credit union portfolios. “We welcome them,” saidWallace Jensen, president of Union Financial Services, thefledgling credit card bank owned by CUNA Mutual, Corporate One FCU,Card Services for CUs and Certegy. Jensen, who built Sears creditcard operations, said Union Financial has shifted its ownershipstructure to so that Corporate One is no longer the controllingowner in order to help it get deposit insurance through the FDIC.Wescom CU President Darren Williams, a former credit card bankerfor Union Bank, said he believes there is room enough in the creditunion market for both entities. Both executives said they plan onlaunching their cards programs around the third quarter. A thirdcredit card bank, First National of Omaha’s InfiCorp., isalso headed by a former credit union executive, Keith Floen, whoran CUNA’s credit card operation.