Just 10 days after Tampa, Fla.-based credit union service organization CSCU
Trellance said it will operate as CSCU has done throughout its history, as a not-for-profit cooperative CUSO. Trellance added it will inherit CSCU’s articles of incorporation, bylaws, and board of directors. All equity and ownership from CSCU will be retained by Trellance, the company said.
Tom Davis, formerly the president of CSCU and briefly the president of both organizations, will serve as president of Trellance. Davis took over the reins of CSCU from longtime president and CEO Robert Hackney, who retired at the end of 2017.
Davis told Credit Union Journal Trellance, the new brand, is still owned 100 percent by the former owners of CSCU, and CSCU is going to continue with its card-processing business model. The staff that supported the card processing business will work for CSCU, while employees that performed other duties will work for Trellance, he added.
“When we started CSCU as a card processor we were the credit union-facing portion of the company for 30 years,” he explained. “But we also did advocacy and consulting. In 2016 we started Optimize, which is managed services, plus we did consulting and The Payments Review. We will be announcing services that make sense as we go forward in the first half of 2018.”
Credit unions will be unaffected by this move, Davis asserted. He said those CUs that have contracts with CSCU will continue those relationships, while those CUs that have relationships with the businesses offered by Trellance likewise will continue.
“On Day One, nothing will be disturbed,” he said. “Over the course of time, some credit unions may elect to do business only with CSCU or only with Trellance, or some will work with both companies.”
When Trellance was unveiled, CSCU said it was created “to focus on offering innovative ideas, programs and services to help credit unions grow and compete.”
CSCU’s Optimize card growth solutions offerings and the company’s thought leadership initiative, The Payments Review, will be under the Trellance company umbrella going forward.
What had been known as CSCU’s Optimize portfolio of solutions will continue to offer both programmatic and customized marketing campaigns to help credit unions engage their members, managed entirely by Trellance from development to implementation on behalf of the participating credit union, the company said.
“The processing agreements credit unions have with CSCU will live until they expire. Nothing will compete, nothing will overlap between CSCU and Trellance,” Davis told CU Journal, noting the two companies will not share office space. “Trellance will continue to work with CSCU, as well as other third-party processors. We are looking forward to 2018 when we release new products and services.”
