While some conferences have seen their exhibitor ranks shrink, Corelation’s user conference reported a 30% increase in exhibitors this year compared to last year. The event, which runs through Thursday at the San Diego Westin, attracted 50 vendors.

Why the increase? Joe Brancucci, president of the McLean, Va.-based CURateReset, credited Corelation’s business strategy, which encourages third party providers to integrate with the core.

“Corelation is very different than the traditional core vendors, who make you go through the credit union to access the API, rather than saying we’ll get it done for you,” he said. “They’re making it easy for credit unions to do business with multiple vendors.”

Walter Hoffman, strategic alliances manager at CRIF Lending Solutions, agreed.

“They’re slowly building a large vendor ecosystem, very much like some of their competitors, but they allow for better integration overall,” said the Atlanta-based Hoffman.

He added that the increase in exhibitors was also due to Corelation‘s increase in user clients, because as the San Diego core provider adds credit unions, it adds a wider spectrum of vendors that need to be integrated into the core.

Registration was also up this year at Corelation’s user conference. The San Diego firm reported 162 clients representing 52 credit unions are attending the event, along with 55 prospective clients from 13 credit unions. Those figures are up 40% from last year.

Technology is great, but Corelation understands that relationships are everything in the credit union community, SMA Solutions President Kathy Hooker Burress said.

“That translates into a very enthusiastic client base, which is just the kind of environment that any exhibitor hopes for,” said Burress, whose firm is located in Kingwood, Texas. “This is easily one of the best conferences we’ll attend this year.”

DaLand Founding Partner Jon Ungerland said Corelation is a superb organization with a wonderful client base, and called Corelation’s Keystone core a great platform.

“Our mission is to provide professional services, core customization, and custom development to allow credit unions to thrive,” said the Aurora, Colo.-based Ungerland. “And that’s enjoyable and rewarding when working with credit unions on such a great core.”

J.C. Covalesky, vice president of business development at the Madison Heights, Mich.-based document service IDS, called the conference exciting and said Corelation focuses on providing and uplifting program, rather than “just telling everyone how great they are.”

“People at this conference are just in a better mood than they are at other conferences,” he said.