Stanford Federal Credit Union (or Stanford FCU) is a federally chartered credit union located in

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was est ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...

. It provides banking services to the

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

community. Stanford FCU has over $3.6 billion in assets and serves over 80,000 members.

History

Stanford Federal Credit Union was created by a group of

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

employees on December 17, 1959. Its original field of membership was limited to employees of the university. The credit union opened in 1960 with $261 in deposits and established its first office in Encina Hall on Stanford University’s campus. In 1985, Stanford Federal Credit Union expanded its field of membership to include

students and members and employees of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce. In 2004, the credit union opened its membership to members of the Friends of Palo Alto Libraries (FOPAL). Today, Stanford Federal Credit Union also serves numerous company partners, including Google, VMware, Facebook, Tesla, SAP and more.

Expansion of Services

The credit union became one of the first to offer

checking account A transaction account, also called a checking account, chequing account, current account, demand deposit account, or share draft account at credit unions, is a deposit account held at a bank or other financial institution. It is available to the ...

s and

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

s in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, it introduced ATMs and banking by telephone. In November 1993, Stanford Federal Credit Union conducted its first four internet transactions; and in 1994, it became the first financial institution to offer

online banking Online banking, also known as internet banking, web banking or home banking, is an electronic payment system that enables customers of a bank or other financial institution to conduct a range of financial transactions through the financial insti ...

when it launched its website; it offered online BillPay to its members in 1997, added account aggregation and mobile banking in 2002, and became one of the first institutions to implement the Passmark authentication system in 2005. In 2007, Stanford FCU joined the

CO-OP A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-contro ...

network to provide its members with over 30,000 surcharge-free ATMs nationwide.

Membership

Any member of the Stanford community may join Stanford Federal Credit Union, including students and employees of Stanford University, employees of Stanford Health Care, Stanford Children’s Health, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The credit union’s field of membership also extends to the following: * Companies that are located on Stanford-owned lands * Members, employees, and volunteers of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce * Employees of member companies of the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce * Employees of select member companies, including Google, VMware, Facebook, Tesla and SAP * Members, employees, and volunteers of the Friends of Palo Alto Libraries (FOPAL) * Members, employees, and volunteers of the Museum of American Heritage (MOAH)

Organization

Stanford Federal Credit Union is chartered by the

National Credit Union Administration The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) is a government-backed insurer of credit unions in the United States, one of two agencies that provide deposit insurance to depositors in U.S. depository institutions, the other being the Federal ...

(NCUA) as a federally insured credit union. It is led by a Board of Directors that is elected by the credit union’s members and serves without pay.

Products and services

Stanford Federal Credit Union offers a range of financial services, including consumer and business accounts and

loan In finance, a loan is the lending of money by one or more individuals, organizations, or other entities to other individuals, organizations, etc. The recipient (i.e., the borrower) incurs a debt and is usually liable to pay interest on that de ...

s. Financial tools and services in the form of webinars, online calculators, and financial counseling are also available to both consumer and business members of the credit union. The credit union has six branch locations and maintains over 30 ATMs around the

campus and

. As a member of the

Network since 2007, Stanford Federal Credit Union also has access to over 30,000 additional surcharge-free ATMs.

Subsidiary

In 1997, Stanford Federal Credit Union announced the creation of its wholly owned

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a sa ...

, Cardinal Services Corporation (CSC). The corporation focused on licensing software and supporting Internet development for businesses. Cardinal Services Corporation operated as a

credit union service organization Credit union service organizations (CUSOs) are corporate entities in the United States that are owned by federally chartered or federally insured, state chartered credit unions. Under US federal law and the National Credit Union Administration ...

(CUSO). CUSOs were established by the NCUA as a way for credit unions to conduct business that they would otherwise be restricted from. A spin-off of Cardinal Services Corporation, Cyberbranch, was announced in April 2000 by Stanford Federal Credit Union, and replaced the CUSO. CyberBranch specialized in internet and intranet technologies designed for the financial services industry. In June 2001, Canadian

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology syste ...

management and business process services company, CGI Group Inc. acquired Cyberbranch for US$1 million.

Community involvement

In 2004, Stanford Federal Credit Union funded an

endowed professorship A financial endowment is a legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of financial, real estate, or other investments for a specific purpose according to the will of its founders and donors. Endowments are of ...

within Stanford University’s School of Humanities and Sciences.

References

{{Authority control Credit unions based in California Companies based in Palo Alto, California Banks established in 1959