Vancouver, B.C. – March 11, 2013 – CUTASC today announced it has acquired privately held Solutions Only Financial Technologies Inc (SOFT), a leader in credit union business process software solutions. Headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., SOFT offers credit unions tailor made, easy-to-deploy intuitive software solutions designed to transform customer acquisition, lending and internet banking business processes.

SOFT’s Harmony and Liberty software products offer CUTASC the opportunity to augment its core banking system offering as well as other systems in use by many credit unions and community financial institutions in Canada and the US. Combined; SOFT and CUTASC products and services will provide new and existing customers with significantly enhanced choice, functionality, and value.

“As the credit union and community banking industries continue to face increasing operational and budgetary pressures, CUTASC, a credit union owned technology solutions provider, known for its value-driven business model and cost effective IT solutions, is increasingly sought out to solve an ever-widening range of challenges,” said Brad Best, CEO of CUTASC. “Acquiring SOFT complements and expands CUTASC’s strategy to offer more financially centric, affordable and effective IT solutions to help our customers to realize new revenue opportunities.”

“CUTASC and SOFT have worked together for many years; often sharing resources and knowledge to bring the best solutions we can for customers we both serve. CUTASC also shares our vision and passion for the development and delivery of Harmony and Liberty software products of which I am confident will thrive under CUTASC’s leadership and continue to represent exceptional value for credit unions” said Clyde Monk, CEO of SOFT.

About CUTASC: Formed in 2002, CU Technical & Administrative Services Corp, (CUTASC) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Northern Savings Credit Union, is a Vancouver B.C. based, professional IT services, business working with the Canadian credit union and community financial sectors. CUTASC focuses on two things: exceptional people, and exceeding customer expectations. For more information: www.cutasc.com

About Solutions Only Financial Technologies Inc: Solutions Only Financial Technologies Inc (SOFT), are leaders in customized software products that maximize productivity, accuracy, and revenue opportunity. Since 2004, SOFT’s Harmony brand of software products have rejuvenated business processes, and transformed the point of sale experience, for North American credit unions, banks, and insurance companies. For more information; www.solutionsonly.com

Media Contact: Stephen Mitchell | +1.604.813.0939

Mansoor Bhattijoins CUTASC as a Senior Technical Systems Engineer from Accenture (Best Buy IT) BC, where he was responsible for environment management. He has over ten years experience in a wide range of IT projects, and holds multiple professional IT certifications. Michael Buckley joins CUTASC as a Technical Systems Analyst, from Absolute Software Corp, Vancouver, where he was a network engineer. He has over eight years experience in network administration, design and support, and holds numerous professional certifications.

2012 has been recognised as the International Year of Co-operatives by the United Nations. This is an acknowledgement by the international community that co-operatives drive the economy, respond to social change, are resilient to the global economic crisis and are serious, successful businesses creating jobs in all sectors. More

Toronto ON: Canada’s top ten CUs. The big get bigger, the small get …?

The largest 10 CUs reported growth higher than the entire top 100 group. With an 8.9 % increase in six-month growth, these 10 CUs

A further breakdown shows the 5 largest CUs with gains of 9.9% over fourth quarter 2010. This small group of CUs now account for 34.9% of all system assets in the country (excluding Quebec), with combined assets of $50.6 billion. Those CUs ranked 11 to 100 recorded a six-month growth rate of 3.2% in assets, while assets in the remaining part of the system experienced a mere 0.5% increase.

Regional representation on the list is as follows: BC 25; Alberta 11; Saskatchewan 11; Manitoba 17; Ontario 29; New Brunswick 5; Nova Scotia and Newfoundland at one each.

The top ten CUs are:

• Vancity
• Coast Capital Savings
• Servus
• Meridian
• First West
• Conexus
• Steinbach
• Assiniboine
• First Calgary Savings
• Cambrian

All rankings are the same as for the 4th quarter 2010 except for Coast Capital and Servus, who have switched positions.

Filene’s goals regarding Finovate are twofold: Help credit unions and system partners be aware of what is happening in the realm of financial services to break myopia within the industry. Marry ideas, regardless of where they have originated, with credit union expertise and distribution channels and get them to market efficiently for the benefit of consumers. In Now Showing: The Best in New Financial Technology, Filene spotlights several top Finovate concepts that are sparking a great deal of interest across the financial services industry. The time is ripe for credit unions not only to continue to focus on balance sheets and financial stability, but also build toward a future of growth and increased market share that is possible with the implementation of leading-edge ideas. A chart encompassing all 35 ideas from FinovateEurope 2011 and 63 ideas from FinovateSpring 2011 is included in this report. Each listing includes the type of idea and a brief assessment of its relevance to credit unions. This is an information gold mine for credit unions seeking a “wow” solution for their members.  More.

Credit unions affiliated with Credit Union Central of Canada may register for access to Filene research for free by using this link:http://filene.org/home/cucc

Rachael King, Bloomberg Businessweek: Michael De Frenza scans the crowd of 50 or so well-dressed professionals mingling near a bar at the W Hotel in San Francisco’s South of Market District. De Frenza, a recent transplant to the Bay Area, is here in search not of a date—but of a job. In the five weeks since De Frenza, 34, returned to the area after a two-year stint in Toronto, he has received five offers. “I’m taking my time trying to find the right fit,” he says.

I Love Rewards, which provides companies with services to motivate employees, arranges cocktail parties like this one every other week at the W Hotel to help it recruit 40 people by Sept. 30 for a new West Coast sales outpost. “Just in time for us arriving in San Francisco, the market has gotten extremely hot,” says Razor Suleman, chief executive of the company. “San Francisco is coming back to the days when candidates have two or three job offers,” he says.

Competition for cloud computing engineers, security experts, and mobile developers as well as sales professionals in the technology industry has gotten so fierce in the past six months that companies are going to greater lengths to woo prospective employees. They’re throwing lavish parties, handing out free food at conferences, doling out $50,000 signing bonuses, and offering perks such as free haircuts and medical care at the office.

MORE SIGNING BONUSES

The tech sector is fueling a job boom that stands in stark contrast to the malaise of the general job market. The nationwide unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the same time, the unemployment rate for tech professionals dropped to 3.3 percent, from 5.3 percent in January. “That’s pretty close to full employment,” says Alice Hill, managing director of technology career website Dice.com (DHX).

“It’s such a thin market, it feels like everybody is employed already,” says Adam Pisoni, co-founder and chief technology officer of Yammer, which sells software and services for social networking in the workplace. The San Francisco company is doubling its engineering staff. “Engineers have 10 recruiters calling them.” The company would like to hire between 50 and 100 engineers this year, Pisoni says.

Companies are employing a variety of strategies to attract talent. Saba Software (SABA) and Digital River (DRIV) recently paid C-level executives $50,000 signing bonuses. “While signing bonuses at tech companies are not uncommon, their use has become more prevalent recently as the economy has improved and competition for talent has heated up,” says Aaron Lapat, managing director of the technology practice at executive recruiting firm J. Robert Scott. Recruiters are also circling Cisco like vultures, anticipating the August layoffs in the hope of finding qualified employees.

BELLS AND MUSIC

Recruiting tactics from the late 1990s are starting to make a comeback, too. Last year, Appirio hired a taco truck and parked it at Dreamforce, an industry conference for cloud computing professionals. Attendees couldn’t help but notice the signs on the truck saying that Appirio was hiring as they waited in line for free tacos.

When Dreamforce happens again later this month, Appirio plans to ply attendees with more food, but the company wouldn’t divulge exactly what it plans to serve. Appirio anticipates that about 25,000 people will attend Dreamforce, the cloud computing trade show organized by Salesforce.com (CRM). “We assume that 10 percent are actively looking for a new job,” says Narinder Singh, Appirio’s chief strategy officer. The company hired 110 workers in the first half of this year and is looking for another 140 by year’s end.

In 1998, when Mark Barrenechea worked for Oracle (ORCL), he hired an ice cream truck and parked it outside of then-competitor Siebel Systems. At the time, he was a senior vice-president for applications development trying to find engineering talent. The bells and music would signal employees to come outside, he says.

WATCHING FOR LAYOFFS

In his current role as CEO of supercomputer-maker Silicon Graphics International (SGI), Barrenechea uses a different tactic. “We haven’t had to resort to ice cream trucks and cocktail parties,” he says. Instead, SGI is going after employee referrals and targeting companies where there’s organizational change. The CEO says the company has found supercomputing talent at Oracle’s Sun Microsystems and may find technical sales talent from Cisco’s upcoming layoffs. SGI plans to expand its sales force 10 percent this year, adding about 25 positions. Cisco declined to comment.

Suleman at I Love Rewards also encourages employees to refer job candidates. He’s offering a luxury trip to Las Vegas in September for any employee who refers a new hire. Even though each employee will stay in a suite, Suleman says it’s 80 percent less expensive than using a recruiter.

In the end, though, some prospective employees will be wooed with competitive compensation packages that include cash bonuses. When Saba Software hired Shawn Farshchi as chief operating officer on June 1, the company agreed to pay him a yearly salary of $265,000 with an annual performance incentive bonus of up to 70 percent of his base salary. That offer also included stock options and a signing bonus of $50,000.

Farshchi previously worked at IBM’s (IBM) Coremetrics Web analytics unit and at Cisco’s (CSCO) WebEx operation, which he took from a $60 million business to more than $300 million, says Saba CEO Bobby Yazdani. Farshchi has expertise in selling a product globally, which is a skill Saba needs, Yazdani says. “He was someone that we had our eye on, and we were not going to lose that battle for $50,000.”

INCREASING

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CRAZINESS

As companies compete for a limited talent pool, they’re upping the ante. “There’s so much poaching going on, and now we see the rise of the crazy perks,” says Hill at Dice.com. Hill says she’s seeing companies offer a range of services, from car washes and free haircuts to onsite doctors, dentists, and notaries. “Qualcomm has a weekly farmer’s market,” says Hill.

No doubt these developments are a welcome change for workers after the recession. For companies, though, this means an increase in labor costs as salaries rise and businesses try to buy cheapest cialis online retain workers with perks and retention bonuses. It may also force companies to grant richer stock option awards to attract the right programming talent, according to a Fitch Ratings report released last month.

The percentage that stock-based compensation makes up of total operating expenses can serve as a proxy for technology labor market tightness, says Jamie Rizzo, an analyst at Fitch Ratings. At Adobe (ADBE), options and other stock awards accounted for 8.6 percent of total operating expenses in 2010, up from 7 percent in 2007. Intuit (INTU) saw that number increase to 5.7 percent in 2010, from 4 percent in 2007.

SKILLS WITH SHORT LIVES

The rush to find workers is symptomatic of a deeper problem in the tech industry. The supply and demand of talent is out of sync, says Professor Peter Cappelli at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Companies are looking for exactly the skills they need today to deal with their clients. “We don’t want to have to train anybody, and when those skills become obsolete, we don’t want to retrain them,” he says. Companies tend to hire people with IT engineering degrees, use those skills for five years, and then they want a new crop, says Cappelli, who researches human resource practices and talent management.

“It means they are hiring and laying off at the same time,” says Cappelli. “It’s a really bad thing for the economy and for the companies themselves, because it’s putting them at the mercy of the labor market.” It also leads to labor booms and busts, which didn’t happen as much before 1983 because companies would train and retrain people, Cappelli says.

Still, Michael De Frenza, who sold time shares until the recession, is happy to find the tech job market is on the upswing. In his last job, he traveled 80 percent of the time. He has two young children and says he’s ready to stay put for a while.