Southwest Corporate Pilots MexicanRemittances

DALLAS - (06/01/06) -- Southwest Corporate FCU said it haslaunched a pilot remittance with StarTrust FCU which will allowmembers of the Houston credit union to open accounts in the U.S.and correspondent financial institutions in Mexico to facilitatethe low-cost Director a Mexico program. The program is apartnership between the Federal Reserve and Banco de Mexico topromote remittances through low-cost ACH transactions. The FederalReserve developed Directo a Mexico to allow financial institutionsto make low-cost money transfers through the Fed’s own ACHchannel with Mexican banks. The cost of the Internationaltransactions is a $0.67 ACH surcharge. The exchange rate is set byBanco de Mexico, which claims that it is the lowest in the market.Once the pilot phase is completed in mid-summer it will be madeavailable to other Southwest Corporate member creditunions.