The Tampa, Fla.-based Trellance announced today that it has divested payments processor CSCU, meaning the two are now separate businesses.
The move comes just days after CSCU announced on Dec. 18 that it had formed Trellance, which it said it created “to focus on offering innovative ideas, programs and services to help credit unions grow and compete.”
The divestiture appears to be part of a continued effort to focus on helping credit unions cope with the increasingly complicated, rapidly changing payments world. Tom Davis, who was president of the combined entities and who will now lead Trellance, said in an interview with CU Times that CSCU’s original focus for a long time was card processing, but that over the years, things such as consulting, education and advocacy-type services came into the mix.
“Over the last year or so, as we’ve said, ‘Okay, well, where’s the future going as these disrupters and these fintech companies come into play?’ Even working with the providers that we’ve always used, it becomes muddied. You want to use, say bill pay here, you want to use card control there, you want your processing to be here, and it just became very difficult for credit unions to sort of navigate that. And it became difficult for us as well to say, ‘Where is our focus? Are we here to basically sell contracts? Or are we here to work with our members, and be aligned with our members, and be advocates and their expertise that they need in what’s becoming a complicated space?’” he told CU Times.
“What we decided to do was sort of package up, if you will, our traditional card processing services – which would be anything to do with credit and debit, any commercial and merchant contracts or relationships with a third-party provider – and put that under one business unit. Then the rest sort of became Trellance,” he said.
CSCU’s Optimize-branded managed-service offerings will now operate under Trellance, according to the announcement. Optimize provides programmatic and customized marketing campaigns for credit unions. CSCU’s The Payments Review will also operate under the Trellance company umbrella, according to the release. Davis said employees will move based on their roles and the products or services they support.
Going forward, Davis said he plans to look at new partners and opportunities, including fintechs.
“Some of these fintech companies have been wanting to work with credit unions for some time and they don’t necessarily know how to make it work,” he said. “Well, what if some CUSO stood between, if you will, these fintech companies and the credit unions and tried to mold their delivery, their products and services or whatever to work better with credit unions? That’s another opportunity that we can do because we’re not affiliated with anybody but our credit unions.”
Though CSCU and Trellance are becoming separate, independent entities, Davis said the two will work together to ensure there are no disruptions in service and that no clients fall through the cracks. He said he hopes to announce some new products and services at this year’s GAC.
