Mergers in the credit union industry seem like a way of life these days, and this year CU*Answers has noticed an uptick in that activity. The West Michigan-based data processor is presently scheduled to perform fifteen credit union mergers during the 2015 fiscal year running from October to September—the CUSO completed nine in 2014. Of the fifteen mergers, eleven involve credit unions coming onto the CU*Answers CU*BASE^® system; the other four are merging into a non-CU*BASE credit union. The mergers have resulted in a net increase of 33,000 new members on the CU*Answers platform.

CU*Answers realized that mergers were a growing business strategy for credit unions a few years ago and rolled out special pricing for their credit unions. To help with the financial cost of a merger, if the merging credit union is not currently on the CU*BASE system, CU*Answers will waive the base per member processing cost for the first year. EVP Scott Page said, “This special pricing has made it possible for many of our credit unions to merge others in, preventing some smaller credit unions from dissolving altogether.”