ORANGE COUNTY, Calif.– A long-time veteran of credit unions and CUSOs has launched an online platform designed to foster collaboration between credit unions and small businesses.
Founded by Mike Hales, CUinfluential is a response to the fact “many credit unions have successfully jumped on the member business lending bandwagon” over the past two decades, but community and regional banks continue to dominate the market, according to the company.
That’s especially true when it comes to the delivery of financial services to small and medium size business, including deposit accounts, vehicle financing, equipment financing, working capital loans/lines of credit, accounts receivable factoring, SBA lending, payroll processing, insurance, investments and more, said Hales, who is , the former president of Counter Intelligence Associates, partner with The Rochdale Group, president of the CUSO Small Business America, and a 15-year member of the NACUSO board.
Enormous Market
In announcing the new CUSO, Hale reminded America’s 33.3 million small businesses employ 62 million employees, making up approximately 46% of the U.S. workforce. He described the majority of credit unions and the majority of small businesses, however, as “ships passing in the night,” and concluded that perhaps credit unions have been going about the process in the wrong way.
“Maybe, instead of relying solely on credit union employees to reach out to small business, we should be encouraging business owners to reach out to credit unions,” said Hales. “Opening the doors to small businesses also opens the doors to their employees.”
To that end, Hales said CUinfluentia is an online platform designed to foster collaboration between CUs small businesses.
Reaching Out
“CUinfluential reaches out to select small business owners and operators who might provide attractive solutions to operational and growth issues facing credit unions,” the company stated. “CUinfluential researches each company and provides and publishes whitepapers, social media posts and email blasts to introduce qualified small businesses to the credit union industry.”
CUinfluential said it is also encourages those small business owners who provide products and services that are pre-approved under NCUA Rule 712 to join NACUSO as an associate member or to partner with a local credit union to form a CUSO and become a primary member.”
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