As many credit unions are jumping into the Health Savings Account (HSA) arena, CU*Answers recently announced that HSA’s are now included as a standard feature within its core CU*BASE processing system. CU*BASE contains all the basic tracking tools to make it easy for clients to monitor activity and report the necessary information to the member and the IRS at tax time. CU*Answers will not charge any extra fees for providing this popular module.

While the title HSA’s often implies savings accounts, clients may set up both savings and checking account dividend applications to function as HSA’s. CU*Answers says it’s CU*BASE tools are designed to allow clients to open accounts, assign deposit and withdrawal codes to individual transactions, verify HSA balances, and handle annual tax-related responsibilities. Similar to IRA’s, default annual deposit limits may also be configured for both single and family plans.

CU”*Answers clients can create these products using either the Share or Share Draft/Checking application type – meaning that if a client has set up a separate BIN with its debit card provider, their HSA program can even offer debit card access to its members — providing additional flexibility and convenience.