CU*SOUTH announced that at 8:00am on Friday July 12, the CUSO activated their Event Response Team (ERT) to support credit unions along the Gulf Coast, ahead of T.S. Barry.

ERT activation includes:

• Emergency remote access to CU*SOUTH’s South Dakota-based Site-Four datacenter via direct VPN, in the event a CU’s branch loses power or internet connectivity.
• Media Services rapid-response website and Facebook updates to notify members of branch closings and alternate contact channels.
• Collaborative Services including back office processing of ACH and draft forward and return items.
• Call Center Services for any CU that needs help maintaining phone and IM chat communication with members.
• Centralized emergency coordination through CU*SOUTH in the event a CU needs to reach employees as part of their DR Plan.
• CTO Advantage recovery services for any PCs, servers, or other hardware damaged by the storm.

Derrick Smith, Chief Operating Officer at CU*SOUTH, said: “Every year, our CUSO works with credit unions in disaster areas to help them regain their operational capacity as quickly as possible. Last year, we helped credit unions in Florida recover from Hurricane Michael, which had left much of the panhandle without power and phone service for weeks and even months. Our core mission is to grow credit unions, and the CUs served by our cooperative were back in business ahead of most other financial institutions – which shows what credit unions can do when we work together to solve each other’s challenges!”

James Pulse, CEO of Coast Guard Employees CU in New Orleans, expressed his support: “(Since partnering with CU*SOUTH in April 2019), this is the first core processor that called me to ensure all was OK prior to the storm, and to ensure we had the contact numbers to key personnel. The other two core processors we used in the past had never done this… we had to contact them to get such information. It shows that they are watching the clients and taking steps to ease the stress of a possible emergency.”