The agreement is aimed at helping the two companies' mutual credit union clients become more effective, competitive lenders.

"Our collaboration will enable us to combine our core competencies - Fiserv's technological expertise and CUNA Mutual's lending and insurance expertise - for the benefit of credit unions and their members," said Tom Neill, president of the Fiserv's Credit Union & Industry Products Group.

"We see Fiserv as a premier data processing company in the credit union industry," said Chuck Stephens, assistant vice president, third-party relations, CUNA Mutual Group. "We're eager to take our partnership to the next level by working more closely with the Fiserv companies to help our mutual clients improve their revenue stream, strengthen their memberships and compete more effectively."

The primary focus of the agreement is CUNA Mutual's payment protection products, which include credit life, credit disability and debt cancellation coverage. Through joint technology and marketing efforts, Fiserv and CUNA Mutual will help credit unions ensure that payment protection products are presented to members consistently, seamlessly and at the optimum time in the lending process. The first of the Fiserv business units to move forward under the new agreement is USERS, a Fiserv core processing provider with more than 330 credit union clients.

"By providing payment protection products more consistently and efficiently, credit unions can help members better protect themselves and their families while growing their own loan portfolios more safely and securely," Stephens said. In addition to ensuring a more consistent presentation of payment protection products, the agreement will improve the tracking of member enrollment in these optional solutions.

Initially, USERS will enhance its Lending Navigator (a browser-based loan origination system) and WebLoan (an online loan origination system) to better support the presentation and delivery of CUNA Mutual's payment protection products. A second phase of the initiative will enable USERS' credit union clients to generate reports required for efficient tracking and management of these products.

"USERS enjoys a long and successful tradition of partnering with CUNA Mutual," said USERS' president John Schooler, citing several long-standing interfaces between the company's core processing system and CUNA Mutual's lending technologies. "For many years, USERS and CUNA Mutual have collaborated for the benefit of our mutual clients. This new agreement is a natural evolution in our relationship."