Value proposition
Small business merchants are the fuel in America’s economic engine, and they can be the next source of fuel for your credit union as well. Business accounts are a valuable addition to any credit union as their balances are usually larger and, typically, they use more services—giving you the opportunity to cross-sell products.
Surprisingly, a vast majority of businesses are still tied to using paper checks. According to a 2007 study by the Association of Financial Professionals, nearly 74 percent of all business-to-business payments were still originated by paper check, with 47 percent of checks written by small and mid-sized companies. Further, a growing number of these companies reported they wanted to enhance the way they did business, relying less on paper and paying their bills electronically. Helping local merchants improve their business processes by handling fewer paper items is ripe with opportunity for your credit union to grow revenue, deepen relationships, and retain and attract new members through innovative new products.
Benefits of Choosing Corporate One
Corporate One’s Business Services are diverse and flexible, allowing credit unions the ability to offer essential services to their local merchants, including business debit, ACH origination and merchant capture. These core services are easy-entry and will enhance your business members’ ability to electronically process purchases, payments and deposits for the streamlined and effective management of their respective companies.
Business Debit
Corporate One’s Business Debit Card Solution, powered by PSCU Financial Services, is an excellent way to simultaneously build member loyalty and interchange income. Our program addresses the purchasing and cash management requirements of small businesses through MasterCard BusinessCard and Visa Business check card solutions. It works like a check, since purchases are deducted directly from a demand deposit account. The program generates revenue growth through preferred interchange rates and reduces expenses by decreasing check and deposit processing costs, both of which are a benefit to your credit union.
Merchant Capture
Corporate One’s Merchant Capture solution, CheckLogic™ Lite--powered by eDoc Innovations (a CUSO partly owned by Corporate One) allows merchants to scan checks on-site and submit the resulting images and data electronically to your credit union 24/7/365. With a merchant capture solution, your credit union can partner with local business owners to provide them with:
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- Greater time efficiency and safety
- Lower overhead costs
- Convenience
- Immediacy and accuracy
Merchant capture offers several benefits to your credit union as well. Proximity is no longer a factor to gaining merchant business—now even those businesses that aren’t conveniently located near your credit union can easily make frequent deposits. Further, in addition to remaining competitive by offering a new and innovative solution, your credit union will significantly reduce deposit costs related to these business items, as indicated in the chart. Marketing materials, including a video, are available to assist credit unions with advertising merchant capture to their business members.
ACH Origination
With Corporate One’s ACH Service members can receive and originate ACH transactions. By simply originating ACH payments, your credit union can offer merchants a much desired and revenue-increasing merchant service by opening up the full spectrum of electronic payments to them. As an originator, you can grow SEG and business accounts by offering automated:
- Direct deposit
- Payroll services
- Accounts payable services
- Monthly bill pay
- Collections
- Expense reimbursement and commissions
- International payments to several countries, including Mexico and Canada
For your business members, direct payments alone eliminate many of the manual processes involved in handling check payments, which improves the accuracy, efficiency and productivity of their day-to-day business operations. Businesses with fewer than 100 employees can save more than $7,000 per year by simply offering direct deposit to employees. The cost savings per employee is approximately $3.00 per paycheck. For your credit union, you’ll see reduced payment processing costs; new fee income from set-up, transaction and file fees; and improved cash flow, forecasting and cash management due to the reliability and timeliness of ACH transactions.
As an originating credit union, you can also offer to install the ACH system on-site at your merchants’ locations so they have the ability to process transactions themselves. Allowing your businesses to process ACH transactions provides additional efficiencies to your credit union’s involvement in such ACH transactions while allowing businesses greater control over their finances. All of which only maximizes the aforementioned benefits associated with ACH origination.
