Cypress West FCU History

Qantas Federal Credit Union was founded in 1969 by the U.S. employees of Qantas Airways which was headquartered at that time at 360 Post Street, on Union Square in San Francisco. Qantas Airways was the Australian national airline, owned by the Australian government and is an acronym standing for Queensland and Northern Territories Air Service.

In the late '70s Qantas Airways moved from Post Street in San Francisco to Cherry Street in San Bruno, California to accommodate a larger reservations unit. At this time, the credit union moved also. As a result of a labor dispute that erupted in 1982, and at the insistence of Qantas Airways management, the credit union moved five miles further south to Millbrae. In 1991, the credit union moved back to San Bruno where it resided until late November of 1999. At that time, it moved to South San Francisco for the next phase of growth.

In 1983, the then CEO recognized that the credit union membership was almost entirely dependent on the airline industry and thus its fortunes were totally dependent on the fluctuations in the price of oil from which jet fuel is derived. With enabling changes in credit union regulations, the credit union embarked on a campaign to diversify the industries on which it relied.

In 1996 a federal judge in Virginia issued an injunction stemming from legal challenges by the banking industry to prevent credit unions, including Qantas FCU from adding new affiliations. The case went to the Supreme Court and banks won.

The bankers legal challenge precipitated one of the most sophisticated, bipartisan, grass-roots Congressional lobbying efforts ever undertaken. Massive support in the House and Senate resulted in the signing into law of H.R. 1151 on August 7,1998 by President Clinton. This new law, among other things, enabled federally chartered credit unions to again take in new groups and also sent a powerful message to the banking lobby that credit unions and credit union members are a force to be reckoned with.

In 2001, after moving to new quarters in South San Francisco, the board of directors decided to change the credit union's name to Cypress West FCU. The purpose of the name change was to reflect the decreasing reliance on the support of the original airline companies and increasingly diverse membership coming from nearly 100 employer groups from many different industries.

Today, Cypress West FCU is no longer totally reliant on the airline industry and has diversified its membership base while building resilience in the face of significant economic and environmental challenges. We are a strong, full-service credit union, eager and willing to meet the needs of our members all across the U.S.

Cypress West FCU makes avery effort to assure that the links offered on this site to other sites are functioning and suitable for the purposes intended. We have no control over how linked sites may be deleted or changed. If a linked is broken or does not operate or is not suitable, please email us at info@cypresswestfcu.org.

CYPRESS WEST PRIVACY POLICY

Recent changes to the Fair Credit Reporting Act allow greater sharing of information between affiliated companies. The changes also allow individuals to restrict use of some information gathered from outside sources and have prompted the Credit Union to formalize a privacy code outlining the practices we will employ to protect confidential information about our members.

CWFCU is committed to providing the highest level of member service. Our reputation is based on the trust placed in us by our members and on our integrity as their financial institution, and we guard that reputation

We maintain partnership relationships with companies whose products are designed to help us provide service to meet the financial needs of our members. At times we will provide information to these partners in order to facilitate communication of useful information regarding products or services they provide. Communications members receive from these partners originate with them and they are provided only the information necessary to help them provide access to their products by our members. We also comply with all laws, State and Federal, relating to the treatment of customer information.

It is our policy to enforce strict standards to prevent any abuse of confidential information by limiting employee access to information and by educating our employees regarding member confidentiality.

Each CWFCU member has the opportunity to restrict our use of third-party information to the extent required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act or to opt out of receiving unsolicited information about products and/or services by contacting the Credit Union. (Third-party information is defined as any information not based on transactions with the Credit Union, such as a credit report).

Children and privacy: We do not knowingly solicit data from children, and we do not knowingly market to children. We recognize that protecting childrens' identities and privacy online is important and the responsibility to do so rests with both the online industry and parents.

Send E-mail to privacy@cypresswestfcu.org to request that you NOT receive periodic mailings regarding products and services.