Fuse, the AI-native loan origination and account opening platform trusted by more than 100 financial institutions, today announced the Fuse Rescue Fund: a $5 million initiative to liberate credit unions from long-term contracts with legacy technology vendors. The first 50 qualifying credit unions will receive the full use of the Fuse platform free of charge until their existing LOS contract expires, and then transition to a subscription with Fuse. That subscription is a flat, annual pricing model with no implementation fees, no variable fees, and no hidden costs.
Credit unions bring Fuse the contract. Fuse covers the transition.
“Credit unions aren’t losing members because they lack heart, they’re losing them because their technology can’t keep up,” says Fuse cofounder Andres Klaric. “Legacy platforms create a widening gap between what members expect and what the system can deliver: hidden fees, glacial change cycles, restricted data access, and zero path to automation. That gap is where fintechs are winning. Fuse exists to close it.”
Is The SaaS Squeeze Over?
For years, credit unions have been caught in a slow squeeze by private-equity-owned vendors that have weaponized friction by charging six-figure implementation fees, five-figure tolls for basic configuration changes, and restricting data access to force renewals. Fintech lenders have surged from 5 percent to nearly 40 percent of loan market share in just five years, while the number of federally insured credit unions has declined more than 30 percent in the last decade.
“The era of the change order is dead,” said Klaric. “Legacy SaaS vendors built their businesses on friction. The harder it is for you to leave or change your system, the more the system providers profit. Credit unions aren’t losing market share because they lack the will to serve their members, they’re losing because they’re fighting a modern war with tools from the 1990s. We built Fuse to be a generational business that realigns incentives. We don’t get paid to lock you in; we get paid to automate your work. And we’re setting aside $5 million to prove it.”
SaaS Must Disrupt Itself in the Era of AI
The Rescue Fund reflects a conviction that runs deeper than a promotional offer: that enterprise software built on pre-AI economics has no right to survive unchanged. For two decades, lending vendors maximized lock-in because building software was expensive and buyers had no alternative. Generative AI has collapsed those costs by an order of magnitude. According to Klaric, “the question is no longer whether rent-seeking SaaS will be disrupted, but whether the disruption comes from within the industry or is imposed from outside it.”
The Velocity Gap
The consequences are already visible. Legacy vendors, burdened by decades of technical debt, release meaningful updates on a timescale of years. Fuse releases updates weekly. This velocity gap means the biggest risk for credit unions is no longer choosing the wrong software, it is choosing software that cannot adapt. A credit union on a legacy platform is structurally incapable of keeping pace with fintech competitors, but a credit union on Fuse gets faster automatically. The gap between the two widens every single day.
The Rescue Offer: Free Until You Leave
Fuse was founded on the bet that the right response to AI is not to preserve legacy margins, but to pass those savings directly to the institutions that need them most. The Rescue Fund includes:
- Zero Cost Transition: Free access to the full platform during the transition period.
- Flat Pricing: A flat $100,000 per year ($50,000 for smaller institutions) thereafter.
- No Hidden Fees: No implementation fees. No per-transaction charges. No fine print.
“SaaS needs to disrupt itself,” said Marc Escapa, Cofounder of Fuse. “Because our platform is AI-native, we build integrations in weeks, not months, and our system self-diagnoses bottlenecks. We pass those gains directly to clients. We’re betting that if we give credit unions the best technology for a fair, flat price, we will build the defining partnership of the next generation.”
Proactive Automation, Guaranteed in the Contract
Rescue Fund participants are not swapping one static system for another. Fuse is the industry’s first Proactive Automation platform: a GenAI Lending Copilot that continuously monitors manual workflows, detects bottlenecks, and proactively recommends fixes. Dedicated Automation Coaches meet with each credit union bi-weekly to implement those recommendations, helping clients achieve up to 71 percent automation within their first year. Fuse backs these outcomes with contractual guarantees: automation rates, integration timelines, Core field access, and support SLAs.
A Generational Platform, Already Proven
Fuse is already powering more than 100 financial institutions, ranging from Navigant Credit Union ($4B in assets) to community-scale partners like Canopy Credit Union ($200M in assets). FIS Global was recently announced as the official reseller of Fuse after extensive peer diligence.
With more than $25 million raised from the investors behind Chime and OpenAI, Fuse has the balance sheet and the long-term vision to serve as the permanent infrastructure partner for the credit union movement.
50 Spots. First Come, First Served.
The Fuse Rescue Fund is limited to 50 credit unions on a first-come, first-served basis. To claim a spot, visit fusefinance.com/rescue.
