May 24, 2022 (Fairhope, Alabama): After a long road of research, demos, and heavy vetting of core providers – the $265M asset Singing River Federal Credit Union out of Moss Point, Mississippi selects CU*SOUTH for their new core platform partnership.

“Over 1 ½ years ago, our Senior Executive Team appointed qualified staff within our credit union and identified them as our “Core Team,” explains Singing River’s President and CEO Jimmy Smith. “This team of professionals representing every spectrum of our credit union was tasked with defining what our greatest core processing needs were. In particular, we directed this team to envision not only our current needs, but what our needs may be in the future. Once our greatest needs were determined, we then focused on several Core Processor vendors which we believed best aligned with our vision to serve our staff and members,” Smith continues. “CU*SOUTH quickly rose to the top as we considered core processing partners.”

Opening in 1953 by the employees of International Paper (Southern Craft Mill) as a fair-rate financial cooperative, today’s Singing River consists of a membership size of over 21,000 with 80 employees – and growing. Looking ahead to continued growth, Singing River was searching not only for a system that would take care of their daily needs, but one that represented and supported the everchanging needs of their Credit Union members, while providing the resources from technology to support their staff not only needs, but deserves.

“In today’s fast paced world, your core system not only has to be able to keep up with your members’ needs, but also the ever growing and changing demands on your staff,” explains one of Singing River’s Sr. Vice Presidents Buddy Odom. “SRFCU believes CU*SOUTH’s size and innovativeness will allow us to reach that next level of service excellence.”

With a mission to exceed member and community expectations through quality products, outstanding service, and financial integrity – VP of Operations at Singing River Toni Goff explains, “CU*SOUTH gives us the capability to deliver services more efficiently to our membership. With more integration and innovation opportunities, these items are vital to our future growth at SRFCU. CU*SOUTH serves only credit unions. They support our credit union philosophy of “people helping people” which is a huge benefit as well.”

“Jimmy, his team, and the Board at Singing River recognized from the very beginning the immense value that we bring to our credit union partners and that we are so much more than just a core solution,” states Derrick Smith, President/Chief Operating Officer of CU*SOUTH. “We foster a culture of collaboration and cooperation that spans from our internal team to the credit union’s staff, Board, and members – all the way through to our cuasterisk.com network, allowing for a breadth of opportunity to pursue the most effective and innovative level of technology and service for our community of credit unions.”

Paul Thompson, another Sr. Vice President at Singing River perfectly summarizes the Credit Union’s excitement to partner with CU*SOUTH, “SRFCU is pleased to be part of the CU*SOUTH family! Our members and employees are the beneficiaries of constantly improving technology built for credit unions by credit unions. The CU*SOUTH Board is focused on a high level of service for CUSO members, and extra features are available to all CUSO members! It’s like everyone gets two cherries on top!”

Smith of CU*SOUTH concludes, “The trust they have placed in our CUSO does not go without notice and we will respect and honor that trust throughout our entire relationship. We are all very much looking forward to a long and continuing mission of service to Singing River and are delighted to have them join our CUSO family.”

Singing River’s conversion date to CU*SOUTH’s CU*Base core platform is tentatively set for September 2023.

As part of the CU*Asterisk network with a community of over 350 credit union partners, CUSO-based CU*SOUTH was founded in July 2006, with a mission to grow credit unions. They do this by delivering an outstanding core software and support experience (CU*BASE), as well as by delivering Collaborative Services with fractional employees to support the credit unions in the CU*Asterisk network with accounting, collections, compliance, IT management and back-office support, and more.