Dina Vardouniotis founded Payments+Partnerships (P+P) consulting practice five years ago with the vision of creating value through collaboration.
“Looking back at my career, I’ve always been energized by partnership opportunities that create value for all parties. In payments, there are very few products and services that don’t require the participation of multiple stakeholders across the ecosystem. That’s what makes opportunities so complex but also so interesting.”
As a CMO at Alterna Savings and Alterna Bank, Dina leveraged her experience in credit cards to co-build the National Credit Union Credit Card Program with Paul Paruch, VP Digital and Payments, Atlantic Central and League Savings and Mortgage (ACLSM) and Jeff Shewfelt, former co-CEO, Gulf & Fraser Credit Union. When the system decided to pivot away from the provider at the time and choose Collabria as a partner, Dina knew that the power of collaboration was the only way to negotiate a compelling value proposition for all participating credit unions. Although aggregation had been tried before, Dina’s experience from JPMorgan Chase and Citi Cards combined with her strategic know-how, along with Paul and Jeff’s leadership, effectively convinced over 200 credit unions across the country to participate in the largest cohesive payment program in Canada. In the recent renewal of that program, Dina’s consulting firm guided the sponsors and Central 1 to identify additional value to extract from the relationship and re-negotiate even better terms.
In the spring of 2023, P+P was engaged to support League Savings and Mortgage (LSM), a subsidiary of Atlantic Central, in the development and evolution of their business strategy. Formally with Concentra Bank, Paul Masterson ACLSM’s CEO, brought the entrepreneurial spirit and success of his former role to insights on how LSM can address gaps in the credit union system. Together, LSM and P+P formed the vision of CUPAY – the first and only Merchant Services solution, built by and for credit unions.
Following months of assessment of how credit unions were currently providing Merchant Services to their members, some alarming gaps became clear. Across the country, credit unions are engaged in referral arrangements with no visibility on how their most valued small business members are being treated and with providers who compete with them in their own markets.
“Imagine if Collabria was in-market, acquiring credit union member customers’ directly?”, says Paul Paruch. “We realized that there was something wrong! Credit unions had fragmented agreements, with little-to-no support for their providers.”
Paul and Dina formed a small team and engaged in discussions with credit unions to validate their hypothesis that this problem needed to be solved. The feedback from credit unions was consistent. Repeatedly, they heard that this area of payments was largely ignored and passively managed.
“We refer our most valued small business members to what is the greasiest part of payments”, said one credit union leader.
Answering this need, CUPAY was born and announced at Central 1’s Momentum conference. The interest was overwhelmingly positive by industry and credit unions leaders. Click here to see videos.
From a mere idea one year ago, to piloting with three credit unions in Atlantic Canada and credit unions signing up as early adopters, CUPAY is well on its way! With a growing leadership team including Eva Sergnese, GM, and Miriam Kotsopoulos, Partnership Lead, and a commitment to provide fairness, transparency, and the very best in service, CUPAY offers Merchant Services in credit union members’ best interest. CUPAY leverages a platform-as-a-service model to bring the latest point-of-sale terminals with hundreds of integrations, and app plug-ins to power merchant businesses and we support you with cohesive marketing and servicing programs. Our promise is consistent with credit union values to both deepen and build more lasting relationships with their members. Learn more.
