CUSO’s ‘CU-Save’ Program Continues to Deliver Big Time Savings to Credit Unions
A CUSO providing contract renegotiation and cost reduction services continues to deliver eye-opening savings for its credit union clients. Since the launch of the program in 2017, InterLutions has helped 80 credit unions save over $30 million. The solution is called CU-Save and partners with the industry-leading advisory firm SRM to review third-party vendor contracts to realign pricing, increase incentives and income, and remove restrictive service requirements leading to a much improved and mutually beneficial agreement.
“This partnership was formed to help credit unions boost their bottom-line performance,” said Jesse Kohl, President of InterLutions. “About 90% of the credit unions we have worked with realized they were paying their vendors significantly higher than what we have proven to be market value.”
The powerful combination of inside experience and proprietary benchmarking delivered savings in the six-figure range for several of its participating credit unions with most being able to retain their preferred service partners with zero impact to service levels and no operational disruption.
“My first thought was that this process will likely be a waste of time and produce suggestions that certain contracts be extended to bring monthly costs down, with no real savings over time,” stated Lloyd Fredendall, President/CEO of NuMark Credit Union. “The CU-Save team was able to help us negotiate acompletely unexpected and very much appreciated contract providing a net savings/increased income combination in excess of seven figures over the term of the contract. Needless to say, we were very impressed with the results.”
“We partnered with CU-Save to review contracts for several of our critical contracts, including core, card processing, and online banking,” said Pete Paulson, President/CEO of Corporate America Family Credit Union. “We appreciate their approach in seeking to maintain a positive relationship with our business partners as they negotiate the terms. It feels great to sign a contract with confidence that we have reasonable pricing.”
Utilizing an archive of invoice data and payments analytics, along with a software database of industry benchmarks, the CU-Save contract negotiation team leverages the power of data to help credit unions significantly lower their operational expenses.
“Our subject matter experts can be counted on to analyze a credit union’s most expensive vendor agreements and cut out the fat that is built into so many contracts,” said Kohl. “We welcome any credit union looking for assistance to drive down costs and build new revenue streams.”