Regina -- Regina-based CU Electronic Transaction Services Inc. (CUETS) today announced it has reached an agreement in principle with Credit Union Central of Ontario to purchase CU Credit Inc.

CU Credit is the credit card service bureau for the Credit Union MasterCard and is currently a subsidiary of Credit Union Central of Ontario. It serves more than 300 credit unions across Canada. As of May 31, 1995, CU Credit Inc. had more than $85 million in assets.

The agreement will also include the sale of CUCO's one-third ownership in CUETS to the Centrals of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The latter two provinces currently hold two-thirds of the ownership of CUETS.

"The purchase of CU Credit by CUETS allows us to provide the best card-related services available to the Canadian credit union system," explained Kuss. "Credit unions and their members will ultimately benefit from our ability to achieve greater economies of scale in delivering card services and eliminate operational redundancies between the two organizations."

CUETS provides a broad range of electronic payment services, including MasterCard credit and payment cards, gold cards, merchant services, international ATM service and point-of-sale debit payment services, to more than 600,000 cardholders from 575 Canadian credit unions in nine provinces.

CUETS and CU Credit will be combined and centralized in Regina, adding the full time equivalent of more than 40 persons to CUETS' current staff of 90. Kuss announced the phased-in transfer of CU Credit services from Mississauga to Regina is expected to be complete by December 31, 1995.


For more information:
Bob Lane
CUETS Communications
(306) 566-1772