QCash, CU Solutions Group link up for small-dollar loans

CU Solutions Group and QCash Financial on Monday announced a marketing partnership to promote the latter's small-dollar loan digital platform.

According to QCash CEO Ben Morales, the partnership “will enable more credit unions to help their members achieve improved financial health. This positively impacts the community and creates additional margin for long-term sustainability.”

Based in Livonia, Mich., CU Solutions is a credit union service organization focused on the areas of technology, marketing and HR performance management.

QCash Financial provides automated, cloud-based mobile lending products and is also a wholly-owned subsidiary of the $2.85 billion-asset Washington State Employees Credit Union of Olympia, Wash. QCash Financial was originally conceived to help members who needed short-term, small-dollar loans as an alternative to payday lenders.

Citing research from Center For Financial Services Innovation which shows that 57 percent of American adults struggle financially -- with many dealing with an unhealthy amount of debt, irregular income and sporadic savings habits -- QCash aims to help credit unions to offer a small-dollar loan program to pull members away from payday lenders. The digital platform can originate, underwrite and fund in 60 seconds.

“There are more than 15.6 million unbanked consumers in the United States and 88 million underbanked,” Dave Adams, CEO of CU Solutions Group and the Michigan Credit Union League, said in a statement. “These are people who often don’t have a checking or savings account, live paycheck to paycheck and are especially vulnerable to predatory and payday lenders.”

QCash Financial, Adams added, enables credit unions to offer “a faster, lower-cost alternative to their members in a way that requires no additional IT resources and through multiple channels, including mobile.”