Velera just scored a spot on TIME’s America’s Best Private Companies 2026 list.
And no, this isn’t one of those “pay to play” awards that clutter your LinkedIn feed. This one actually means something.
For those unfamiliar, Velera is the country’s leading payments credit union service organization—or CUSO if you’re into acronyms—and they provide integrated financial technology solutions. Think of them as the behind-the-scenes tech wizards helping credit unions deliver better services to their members.
So What Makes This Award Different?
TIME partnered with Statista (basically the statistics nerds who actually know how to crunch data properly) to identify the top 500 privately held companies in America. But here’s where it gets interesting: they didn’t just look at revenue or growth metrics. They dug deeper.
The ranking evaluated companies on two major factors:
- Employee Satisfaction: Statista surveyed roughly 217,000 U.S. employees over three years. They measured everything from whether people would recommend working there to how employees rated the company culture, working conditions, compensation, and equality practices. You know, the stuff that actually matters when you’re spending 40+ hours a week somewhere.
- Company Impact: This part’s pretty cool. TIME worked with The Upright Project out of Helsinki to measure each company’s “Net Impact”—essentially, do they make the world better or worse? They looked at 19 subcategories across society, knowledge, health, and environmental impact. It’s like a report card for corporate citizenship.
Out of 500 companies that made the list, Velera landed in the top 65. Not too shabby.
Why Velera Made the Cut
“This award is especially meaningful, because it reflects two things that have always gone hand in hand for us at Velera: investing in our people and strengthening the credit union movement,” said Velera CEO Chuck Fagan. “Every day, our team works alongside credit unions to help them better serve their members and communities. We’re proud to foster a culture where talented people can do meaningful work, challenge one another to innovate and help advance an industry built on putting people first.”
And it’s not just talk. Velera has been racking up recognition for its workplace culture like it’s collecting Pokémon cards. Earlier this year, Forbes named them one of America’s Best Midsize Employers. They also snagged the No. 2 spot in their industry on Forbes’ 2025 list of America’s Best Employers for Women and earned a spot on Newsweek’s America’s Greatest Workplaces for Gen Z 2025 list.
The company has consistently prioritized building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace where different perspectives aren’t just tolerated—they’re celebrated. Turns out when you actually invest in your people and culture, good things happen. Revolutionary concept, right?
More Than a Great Place to Work
Velera’s impact extends beyond employee satisfaction scores. The company also earned recognition as a Top 25 solution provider in IDC’s 2025 FinTech Rankings, which spotlights global technology companies delivering innovative solutions to the financial services industry.
The TIME list, announced on July 8, is part of Statista’s broader work publishing industry rankings and company listings with major media partners. And unlike your cousin’s “Top 10” blog post, these rankings are backed by serious research and data analysis from Statista.com, a leading business intelligence portal.
For Velera, this latest recognition reinforces what they’ve been building all along: a company where talented people can do work that actually matters, while helping credit unions serve their communities better. And apparently, TIME and 217,000 surveyed employees think they’re onto something.