Marlborough-based Digital Federal Credit Union was the first in Massachusetts to join the shared branching network created by New England Credit Union Services and Financial Service Centers Cooperative.

Citing convenience for members and financial savings as the primary reasons, New England Credit Union Services has partnered with Financial Service Centers Cooperative to create a shared branching agreement among credit unions in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

“This is really a way to maximize convenience for members without spending millions of dollars on brick and mortar to build new branches,” said Sarah Canepa Bang, chief executive officer of FSCC in San Dimas, Calif.

Under the sales-and-marketing agreement, members of credit unions who join the shared branching network will have access to tellers at linked credit unions throughout the country and around the world for conducting face-to-face business with their home credit union.

Founded in 1990, FSCC was created by a group of credit unions in California as a solution to the growing problem of serving a geographically dispersing member population. After teaming up with two other shared branching networks, the Service Centers Corp. of Michigan and Credit Union Service Corp. of Georgia, the network has grown to include 786 shared branches throughout the United States, Guam, Japan and Korea, with plans for FSCC to expand into Italy later this year.

Despite being the second national group to introduce shared branching after the Service Centers Corp., said Bang, the FSCC was the first group to perform the process electronically as opposed to spending the money to build additional branches.

“We use existing branches of existing credit unions so, in effect, a member of Digital [Federal Credit Union], for example, will be able to go into another credit union’s branch and do business with Digital,” said Bang.

Pairing with NECUS, the entity that oversees the credit union leagues of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, has provided both groups with a new geographic area for FSCC’s shared network and more locations nationwide for members of participating NECUS credit unions.

Daniel Egan, president of NECUS and the Massachusetts Credit Union League in Southborough, said that following discussion with its member credit unions about their needs for providing improved service and additional access points to financial services for their customers, the MCUL looked to FSCC as a resource for beginning that process.

“It was a solid membership, our familiarity with the people in the company and their exposure in certain markets that has made the alignment with FSCC and its partners work well,” said Robert B. Kimmett, MCUL senior vice president of public relations and marketing.

‘Fluidity’ of Lives

Digital Federal Credit Union, located in Marlborough, was the first in Massachusetts to join the shared branching network, with eight other credit unions planned to come online during 2002.

Egan said that although it will be about two years before shared branching is seen in a widespread area of Massachusetts, Digital was a good place to begin since it is a larger institution with a greater, more geographically scattered membership base.

With 43,000 of its 176,000 members located in Massachusetts, said Linda Gousie, marketing manager for Digital, joining the shared branching network became a matter of convenience for members in New England. Until now, members had only been able to participate in shared branching outside of New England. With the partnership between NECUS and FSCC, Digital members can now conduct business at other participating credit unions in New England.

“It’s about the fluidity of people’s lives, people moving in and moving out of different areas,” said Kimmett. “Some people might only need to visit a branch once a month, but when they need to do it, they need to do it.”

Additionally, Egan said that the new shared branching network will be especially helpful for members who need to conduct business while on vacation or who have retired to new locations away from their home credit union.

“This is particularly useful for people who are on vacation in Cape Cod, for example, and want to do business and they don’t want to do it through an ATM or they would like access to a live teller,” said Egan. “They could do it through this particular program because we would have credit unions that are part of the network down on the Cape.”

The only requirements to use a shared branch, said Bang, are that the member must have positive identification and know their account number. While a member’s home credit union sets the parameters on the types of transactions that a member can conduct, host credit unions have the ability to perform all transactions, including check cashing, deposits and transfers.

To create the shared branching network, data processors at participating credit unions build an interface, producing a screen on the teller’s computer similar to the one already in use and linking their credit unions with others in the network. For security and privacy purposes, host credit union branches do not retain any information about the person or account once the real-time, online transaction has been executed.

“Becoming part of shared branching is about one-half technical and one-half [staffing and training], with the technical part being the easy part,” said Bang.

Kimmett said the MCUL has worked to publicize shared branching in various ways, including meetings and internal newsletters, in an effort to prompt additional credit unions to join the network. He added that having a larger organization like Digital would help other credit unions to better understand the benefits of shared branching.

Egan said the bottom line of the shared branching agreement is the ability of credit unions to better serve their members, while still saving money.

“It costs a lot to build branches,” said Egan. “As much as you can deliver products through technology and Internet banking systems, all the surveys show that people still would prefer to do business face to face with a teller at a branch, and that’s what they’re trying to provide with this.”