Changing The Industry Through Innovation
What is CU Sol, LLC?
Who Owns CU Sol, LLC?
CU Sol is currently owned by two distinct credit unions, each with unique membership and markets. Ultimately, the goal is to evolve to a membership structure that includes ownership by credit unions, bank finance companies, and related institutions across the country. We’re open to participation and collaboration with partners – financial and non-financial, that are ready to be a part of something truly unique in the marketplace.
CU Sol is not a political organization. We are not beholden to anyone in the marketplace other than our owners, partners, and clients. As a result, we are not afraid to take a stand. We are committed to helping smaller and mid-sized credit unions, community banks and finance companies grow to meet their current and future needs. At the same time, we’re also open to working with the largest financial institutions and industry providers to meet our client’s needs.
Our current structure allows several levels of investment and ownership. Class A shareholders govern and oversee the entire CUSO operations and strategy. Class B Users receive discounts on services and distributions on earnings, while Partnership shares are designed to attract and retain input from Industry Providers in multiple sectors to help drive product development and implementation efforts. Partners benefit ongoing from the opportunities to have input into and to invest in new products and services and technology as well as having ongoing networking opportunities with CU Sol owners and clients.
What Makes this CUSO Different?
CU Sol understands that regardless of how big or small any financial related institution happens to be, the main impediment to the fruition of many ideas is lack of resources. We’re here to solve those issues through collaboration and aggregation. We strongly believe that through collaboration and aggregation of resources we can minimize consolidation in our industry, and help every individual institution we work with, survive and thrive. Our clients understand their needs better than anyone and, collectively we have the resources needed to scale up and accomplish nearly anything. Collaborate to aggregate, to dominate, we believe are the keys to getting things done.
We’re not out to reinvent the wheel, duplicate, or compete with current providers of quality services. Instead, CU Sol strives to fill the gap for the underserved market of smaller and mid-sized financial entities, as well as institutions of any size that have been priced out of the marketplace. We work to help our clients develop and deliver services – not just to survive, but to thrive.
Our officers are credit union professionals and senior managers in the financial services industry. We respect and cherish our vendor and partner provider relationships. But we would like to see more of our financial resources reinvested back into the industry. One way to accomplish this goal is for CUSOs like ours to own, fund and deliver our own needed product and service solutions into the marketplace.
CU Sol is all about meeting the needs of the marketplace, while keeping resources within the collaborative and aggregated institutions that utilize the products and services. We realize that for almost every product sector, there are a minimum of two competitors, and frequently many more (think COSTCO/Sam’s Club; McDonald’s/Burger King). If there’s a significant need in the marketplace, we’ll consider trying to fill that need, without recreating the wheel – there’s always room for two.
Owner Testimonials
“We aren’t new to the CUSO arena, in fact, we had a shell of a CUSO left over from the days of offering financial planning services. We’re in a unique situation geographically, and of an asset size where we aren’t small, but we aren’t large either. Developing new products and services and finding quality providers for the services we need to serve our members is and has always been a challenge for us. So we discussed and explored the CUSO opportunities, as a result of our ongoing strategic planning. It made sense for us to be part of a multi-owned CUSO that is designed for and has a primary mission of researching and developing and delivering exactly the services needed in the marketplace.”
Gener Deliquina, CEO, Coast 360 FCU – CUS Sol, LLC Board Member
“We’ve been utilizing and have invested in CUSO’s in the past and had good overall success. The networking opportunities and the collaborative concepts have always worked well for our Credit Union. Having the opportunity to be in on the ground floor, from concept development to actual investment in the CUSO, and now strategically planning for our future is an exciting venture for us. We are looking forward to success with our first product offerings, and we are especially looking forward to seeing our investor network grow as more Credit Unions and other related entities buy-into the CUSO to help further our development.”
Marsha Majors, CEO US Eagle FCU – CU Sol, LLC Board Member
“As the CFO for our Credit Union the investment in CU Sol, LLC makes complete sense for us. We already had resources in a dormant CUSO, so having the opportunity to reallocate those funds to an active CUSO that we have significant input into the initial and ongoing development is exciting for us. We expect to see big things come out of the collaboration between our initial two Credit Unions as we deploy our first couple of products and begin serving and helping our client base, while generating revenue for the CUSO.”
Jason Rios, CFO, Coast 360 FCU – CU Sol, LLC Board Member
“Challenging. The Right Thing at the Right Time. Those statements kind of sum it up for me. As we began exploring the CUSO concept in our ongoing Credit Union strategy sessions as a new source of revenue, the more sense it made. Why aren’t more of the products and services we utilize created and/or at least delivered from within our own industry so that we can keep more resources in the industry? We’ve watched a number of our so-called “Credit Union focused” companies get sold over the years, without us ever having an opportunity to make an offer for them. So why not build and maintain our own service provider entities. The concept has certainly worked for a number of very large and successful other CUSO’s. We’re planning on being the next great success.”
Michael Moore, CFO US Eagle FCU – – CU Sol, LLC Board Member