Bank customers can now become part owners of Lenders Cooperative

A consulting practice for community banks and a group of its bank clients have launched Lenders Cooperative, a standalone client-owned entity providing software and shared services for credit underwriting, small business loan servicing, bank operations and white labeled call center support. Financial services customers can now gain equity ownership when they become clients.

Lenders Cooperative was launched in 2019 as a subsidiary of Summit Technology Group, a consulting, services and software practice for community banks. On Tuesday the firm announced that it would spin off Lenders Cooperative as an independent unit. Lenders Cooperative serves 140 financial institutions as customers, but it declined to name or quantify the banks that were co-owners, aside from the $4.9 billion-asset Cape Cod 5 in Hyannis, Massachusetts.