#2486: How Innovative CUSO with Shared-Core Model Thriving Today...

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Enjoy the clip above and be sure to watch the entire interview located below the show notes.

One of the coolest stories we did back in 2014 was a trio of mid-sized credit unions pooling their resources and creating a CUSO (Member Support Services) to share a cutting edge core processing system. It was, and still is, such a cool idea and very "credit union."

So seven years later we are revisiting this story to get an update on how well this shared-core model is working and spark interest in other credit unions looking to join or do something similar. Again, the CUSO here is Member Support Services (MSS), winner of NACUSO's 2015 New CUSO of the Year Award, and the credit unions involved include Aspire Federal Credit Union, Credit Union of New Jersey, and United Teletech Financial Federal Credit Union all sharing Corelation's KeyStone core.

We invited the CUSO's President/CEO Vim Anand and the credit unions' leaders:

• Aspire Federal Credit Union President/CEO Tom O'Shea
• Credit Union of New Jersey President/CEO Andrew Jaeger
• United Teletech Financial Federal Credit Union President/CEO Leo Ardine

What transpired was an entertaining trip down memory lane on how this model was formed and came to life -- and how it's thriving today. Tom, Leo, and Andy are a lot of fun to be around and kid each other relentlessly. But when it comes to MSS, they are all business. Each shared how much work it was to build and get it to this point today, where other credit unions are invited to join and share in the model's many efficiencies and high productivity because of the constant collaboration.

Some of the other items discussed included:

• What would you say to a leader that is concerned about losing autonomy?
• What would you say to those that are concerned about outsourcing roles or functions their people do, to the CUSO?
• What is the reason why a credit union should consider such a collaboration?

I'm throwing out all objectivity here and saying I am huge fans of each of these leaders for putting in the painstaking work in pushing the proverbial envelope in this area. It's impressive and, again, a very "credit union" thing to do.

Check it out and let us know your thoughts. And take a few minutes to watch the entire interview below for all the details.