Co Op Beefs Up Product Development Muscle By Acquiring Minority Ownership In Finivation
CO-OP BEEFS UP PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MUSCLE BY ACQUIRING MINORITY OWNERSHIP IN FINIVATION
RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif., and NEW YORK, N.Y., August 27, 2013 - CO-OP Financial Services is becoming a minority owner of Finivation, strengthening an existing technical partnership for Web and mobile application development and the related middleware to efficiently connect hosts and acquirers for emerging CO-OP products.
"CO-OP is investing in the latest solutions and technologies that make it more convenient for members to do business with their credit unions," said Stan Hollen, President/CEO of CO-OP Financial Services. "Developing digital payment channels is essential in today's market. With Finivation, we can continue to leverage our own technology to rapidly innovate to serve credit unions.
"Finivation is deeply committed to the needs of the credit union movement as it already counts many large credit unions as clients and through its work with the CUNA Technology Council," said Hollen.
Finivation has played a key role in the development of the Credit Union Financial Exchange, or CUFX, an open standard for efficient systems integration in the credit union ecosystem. Launched by the CUNA Technology Council in early 2012, the goal of CUFX is to reduce the time required for systems integration so credit unions can quickly launch new solutions for their members. CO-OP has long established payments standards for financial transactions switching and settlement in both ATM/POS and shared branching. CO-OP has embraced and intends to fully support CUFX for information exchange.
Finivation's primary role in CO-OP product development will continue to be maximizing efficient connectivity to support emerging product lines and building highly adaptive applications that serve CO-OP's credit unions and their members. Finivation and CO-OP will also work together to build a middleware solution that will serve technology providers, payment processors and credit unions.
"We have worked essentially as an internal partner in conjunction with CO-OP's highly innovative product development team, so welcoming CO-OP into our ownership is a natural extension of the existing relationship," said Brian Bodell, CEO, Finivation. "We are looking forward to continuing to provide application development, system integration and technical consulting to CO-OP for a range of products that will help credit unions compete with any financial institution in terms of member convenience.
"In addition to CO-OP products, Finivation will serve our current clients and partners and, with CO-OP's support, we plan to expand our presence assisting credit unions, other financial institutions and technology providers," said Bodell.
The companies are not disclosing the specific terms of CO-OP's minority ownership of Finivation.
About Finivation
Based in New York, N.Y., Finivation specializes in systems integration and software development (Web and mobile) for credit unions, community banks and leading technology providers. Finivation has significant expertise in core banking integration; online and mobile application development; lending, credit card and account opening applications; payments solutions, and technical and strategic due diligence. To learn more visit www.finivation.com.
About CO-OP Financial Services
Based in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., and founded in 1981, CO-OP Financial Services is the nation's largest credit union service organization in terms of number of credit unions, assets and members. The company helps credit unions thrive by providing products and services that make it more convenient for members to do business with them. With a motto of "Be There. Be More," CO-OP's products fall into three business lines, including "Locations," (ATM, shared branching and call center services); "Card Payments" (debit and credit processing) and "Mobile/Virtual" (mobile, online, check imaging, bill pay services). To learn more visit www.co-opfs.org.
