Visions - May 2005Click a headline below to view articles:
Credit Unions Experiencing Smooth Migrations To Enhanced DebitAdvantage™ PlatformTotal Debit Solution Integrates Signature & PIN Debit On A Single Platform
Pam Krupansky, Citadel’s Director of E-Business, gave the transition team from PSCU Financial Services and First Data Debit Services rave reviews. “Our migration went extremely well. In fact, it exceeded my expectations. Normally with this much data we would expect at least a few glitches and some member complaints. But we experienced no interruption of service to our membership and very few changes for our staff. Therefore, on a scale of one to 10, I rate this conversion as a 10!” 26 member-owner credit unions will make the migration this summer to our enhanced DebitAdvantage platform that combines signature and PIN debit on a single platform. By September 1, our new program will service nearly 500,000 signature and PIN debit accounts—and we have commitments to add 300,000 more accounts. Our project management team oversees user training and coordinates all aspects of the migration. Our team provides outstanding on-site support before, during and after the migrations and provides regular communication to users. Our team works with our vendor-partners to deliver a convenient, comprehensive one-stop solution—which is part of our dedication to providing superior service to our member-owners and their cardholders. According to Krupansky, the project management team worked from a detailed project plan, which greatly contributed to the efficiency of the conversion. “All we had to do was listen, validate information and provide information when needed. This streamlined process saved a lot of time for our staff.” PSCU Financial Services provides members complete turnkey services including ATM driving and monitoring, debit card processing, online card management and card issuance, authorization plus stand-in, settlement and reporting, and gateway connections all on a single processing platform. The DebitAdvantage system’s flexibility enables the credit union to maintain control of specific aspects of their transaction authorization and terminal driving process allowing for full flexibility. For example, the credit union can authorize transactions or they can choose full-service processing, in which First Data Debit Services drives the ATMs, holds the cardholder files and authorizes the cardholders’ transactions. Krupansky adds that one of the primary benefits of the enhanced DebitAdvantage platform is convenient, Internet-based access to the STAR workstation from the credit union’s retail offices and contact center. For more information on the power of the DebitAdvantage Total Debit Solution, please contact your Account Executive or visit our Web site at www.pscufs.com. Your Collection Staff Will “Thank You” For The Collection SolutionMany credit unions are under pressure not only to maintain low delinquency levels and lower charge-offs – but also to balance collection priorities. With PSCU Financial Services’ Collection Solution, your collection staff will no longer have difficulty balancing their priorities. Our Collection Solution is an enhanced turnkey service, so you can benefit from increased collection efficiency and improved cure rates. Collection Solution offers flexible pricing options, expanded hours of operation and clear, concise reporting methods. Best of all, our Collection department is results driven. We combine targeted digital campaigns with automated and manual efforts to give your credit union the best collection support available today. This allows your staff to devote more time to preventing costly charge-offs. Our free “skip tracing” locates members daily, making personal contact with your “hard to reach” members. This, along with weekend and evening collection hours, significantly increases “right party” connects as well as “promise to pay” rates. For your review, below is chart of our collection success rate over the last few years. If you have any questions regarding how the Collection Solution can help you increase collection efficiency – and help your staff to concentrate on accounts that require more detailed consideration – please contact your Account Executive today.
Community Outreach With American History Education Makes The ConnectionAn important issue that our members address as they respond to a growing field of membership is how to build the community’s awareness of the credit union. One avenue to make that connection is by joining with PSCU Financial Services in supporting local schools. Thanks in part to a growing number of member-owner credit unions that have chosen to participate in our American History Education outreach initiative, we have sponsored classroom distant learning programs, and provided teacher educational resources and training with extraordinary results. With the support of PSCU Financial Services and our credit union members, nearly 4 million children were provided an exciting opportunity to grow in their knowledge of, and appreciation for, our country’s heritage. We encourage you to join with us in this major effort. As a credit union member of PSCU Financial Services, you are already a participant. However, there is a major opportunity for you to help with very modest local contributions to fund individual schools. The study of American History has no geographical bounds. With a nominal financial contribution of as little as $150, you can provide award winning American History Education “Teacher Resource Kits” to partner with a specific school in your community. As a local participant, you will receive local press support, recognition in regional and national publications, and will be able to share with your members your commitment to making our country a better place. We hope to expand dramatically the number of individual schools we can sponsor in providing support for their history education curriculum, and hope that you can budget a small amount to help fund this effort. PSCU Financial Services believes that the education of our children in the values that make America great is one of our greatest challenges for the future of our country and our industry. With the many challenges of our times, it is easy to drift away from our founding principles as a nation, and ultimately the backbone of our economy can suffer. This Award Winning national programming by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is founded on a simple principle “that the future may learn from the past.” We encourage your support, and hope that your credit union will consider providing scholarships for the programming this upcoming school year. For information on opportunities to make the connection in your community through the American History Education outreach initiative, please contact Merry Pateuk at public_relations@pscufs.com. Role Call For 25 Educators Attending “Credit Union Week” At The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Teacher Institute The school year may be coming to a close for most children, but thanks to a grant from PSCU Financial Services and the First Data Western Union Foundation, 25 elementary school teachers from across the country will be traveling to Williamsburg, Virginia to roll up their sleeves and participate in the newly established “Credit Union Week” at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s Teacher Institute, which will be held August 2-9. Representing 12 states, the teachers were selected from applications that member-owner credit unions presented to educators in their communities. Now in its 16th year, the Teacher Institute helps teachers and students meet national and state history standards through on-site, hands-on immersion experiences in colonial history. Participants are provided with interactive teaching techniques and with the skills to become mentor teachers, assisting their peers and other educators to develop active learning classrooms and make history exciting for their students. Together with Colonial Williamsburg staff, teachers will prepare new instructional materials for use in their own classrooms. Pay My Credit Card Bill Solution Offers More Choices For Your CardholdersYour credit union is probably aware that Pay My Credit Card Bill solution is one of the quickest and easiest ways to let your cardholders make a credit card payment from their home computer, at any time of the day, by accessing your InfoLinkPlus’ Web site. What you might not be aware of is that now we have added the option to allow your members to pay their bill from either their checking account or savings account! By requesting the new Pay My Credit Card Bill Change Option Form from your Member Services Representative, your credit union will be on its way to offering your members the choice of paying their credit card bill from either their checking or savings account. It’s that easy. And that’s not all. Many of our members have suggested that we eliminate the pre-notification requirement for cardholders that opt to pay their credit union credit card from an account not held at the credit union. You now have the option of not requiring the pre-notification requirement. Just indicate on the Pay My Bill Change Option Form that you want to eliminate pre-notification requirement. We are also happy to announce a few additional changes to the Pay My Credit Card Bill solution – including eliminating the need for cardholders to re-register in Pay My Credit Card Bill if they have forgotten their password and have to re-enroll in InfoLinkPlus. More descriptive CIS memos have been added to the FDR system that will make it easier for you to determine when a cardholder has made a payment or changed their payment account via Pay My Credit Card Bill. For those credit unions that are not currently enrolled in Pay My Credit Card Bill but offer InfoLinkPlus to their cardholders – now is the time to re-evaluate the flexibility of the Pay My Credit Card Bill solution. We believe this is one of the easiest and most convenient on-demand payment solutions available – a solution that many of your members are requesting. And, if your credit union is not enrolled in InfoLinkPlus, now is the perfect time to take a closer look at its functionality and benefits. Please contact your Account Executive or visit www.pscufs.com to learn more! CUAlways™ Helps Credit Union Staff Maximize Productivity And ServicePerhaps nowhere is the bane of technology more evident than in that simple invention called voicemail. On the one hand, we need never again miss an important message or request for service from a member. Clearly, voicemail is an efficient tool to capture a service request and relieve the member of the need for repeated attempts at contact. On the other hand, the collection of voicemail messages that members create after we leave the office translates into a hefty workload the next day when we return. So, we end up spending a good part of today working on yesterday. In the world of credit union member service, it’s a familiar story, and one that many credit unions related to during the CUAlways breakout session at PSCU Financial Services’ recent Member Forum. In describing her credit union’s experience with CUAlways, Anne Shivers, CEO of Carolina Collegiate Federal Credit Union, recounted how voicemail processing consumed a good portion of her staff’s mornings. “It was hard to move forward because we were answering questions and following up on things from the night before,” she said. “Now, with CUAlways, we generally start the day with a clean slate because our members have had their requests fulfilled by a live CUAlways agent the night before. It’s a tremendous time-saver and productivity gain for us. Plus, the member no longer has to wait for a callback. CUAlways has simply helped us provide better service to our members.” The well-attended CUAlways breakout sessions and the high volume of traffic at CUAlways’ table at the Member Forum’s Solutions Fair gave ample indication that credit unions are seriously considering providing after-hours and weekend service to their members. Understandably, the biggest concerns voiced by credit unions regarding CUAlways involved the quality and the cost of the CUAlways service. Anne addressed those issues saying, “Honestly, we truly wondered whether a third-party could possibly serve our Another common theme expressed by credit union attendees was their need for business continuity with member services. Mike Hapner, Director for the CUAlways program said “Credit unions that use CUAlways for after-hours coverage or for weekends have a built-in backup for member services should any of their branches need to close unexpectedly. Even working for a credit union on a part-time basis, we know their procedures and processes. It’s just a matter of flicking a switch to route their member calls to our centers.” Whether your credit union is considering expanding your call center to include after-hours processing, or you simply need a partner for business continuity planning, CUAlways may just be the most attractive option for accomplishing these objectives. For more information about how CUAlways can address your particular member servicing requirements, contact Tom Hawkins at 800-245-7728 x4506 or visit our Web site at www.pscufs.com. PSCU Financial Services Launches A New Level Of Service With Its New MemberConnect!As of February 4, 2005, PSCU Financial Services’ member-owners have a new ‘home’. We have remodeled MemberConnect, our Internet-based member-owner resource and communication medium. The site was originally developed to be a source for industry and event news, product information and training, as well as to provide contacts for necessary services. As its user base grows, site designers seek to keep pace with the evolving needs of the member-owners. The goal of the new look and feel of the site is to increase usage — extensive surveys were performed to gather data on how well the previous site addressed the needs of its users. Attention to DetailDesigners wanted member-owners to feel at home on MemberConnect, so information is just where our members would have put it! Resources, from web-based training to forms to reports, are placed with attention to usability. We are constantly adding need-to-know information with our member-owners in mind. For example, product information is now grouped together under associated subcategories, such as Credit, Debit and Online Bill Pay solutions. With drop-down selection boxes and logical links on every page, member-owners can move smoothly from the details of one product to another. Information is ‘chunked’ together in related topics on the new MemberConnect site. For example, critical, frequently used business applications are listed together, for easy access. Additionally, all event information, such as updates and bulletins on the Member Forum and industry tradeshows, is intuitively grouped. The new site was created with the premise of total accessibility in mind, so related topic links are available from anywhere on the site. For example, marketing collateral and resources links even follow you out onto the marketing calendar! What’s New?New to MemberConnect is a more robust Company section in the menu at the top of the screen, critical PSCU Financial Services partner and company information is available for member-owners to review. Business Continuation Plan information is also brand-new to the Company menu. Detailed data on company protocol in the event of an emergency is critical to our member-owners — knowing that member-owners and cardholders will still receive the same level of service despite the circumstances is quality assurance indeed. We want to make sure our member-owners use their time productively in MemberConnect. With that in mind, the new MemberConnect space is designed to be completely searchable, with targeted results that save Old FavoritesIn redesigning the site, designers took care to leave a few of the most-accessed areas intact, such as the QuickLinks area. The QuickLinks area of MemberConnect houses content that member-owners are most familiar with — such as First Data courses and implementation information, Plastics CARDBUILDER, a mock credit card-creating application, and member support forms. And, as always, PSCU Financial Services provides comprehensive products for developing and promoting member-owner card programs and e-commerce services, at no charge:
Make MemberConnect Your Home BaseJoin the growing number of member-owners who use MemberConnect regularly. A full third of all our member-owners access this valuable resource on a weekly basis, and another third logon monthly. MemberConnect is constantly changing, so add the MemberConnect link to your browser Favorites for instant access to the latest industry information, member news and useable resources. And make MemberConnect your first point-of-contact with all your questions — you don’t have to spend time on the phone, waiting for support, when all the answers you need are on MemberConnect! Getting connected is easy — everything you need to get started is in the Administrative Guide. Just visit us at https://members.pscufs.com. Your credit union client ID User Name and Password are required. If you are unable to access the site, please contact your User Administrator at your financial institution. A World Of Opportunity…Nearly 400 attendees entered “A World of Opportunity” and joined us at the tropical Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center for our 28th Member Forum & Annual Meeting April 6-8. If you did join us in Orlando – THANK YOU so much for making this meeting a huge success. If you did not attend, we hate to rub it in, but you missed an absolutely fantastic meeting! First, the hotel and the convention center were spectacular! It was easy to see why the Gaylord Palms Resort is considered to be the premier convention hotel in the Orlando area. Once again this year, nationally recognized speakers and industry experts shared a wealth of information on a variety of topics, including a Legislative update on current industry issues, compelling reasons to develop services for small businesses, how baby boomers will change the financial services industry, and the keys to leadership in the 21st Century. These thought provoking topics were an integral part of our 2005 meeting, and we thank the many speakers that not only enlightened our group – but made us laugh as well! To say our Breakout Sessions were a “hit” is an understatement! Attendees obtained information on an assortment of subjects, including ways to control fraud, the importance of Knowledge Capital, proven practices for credit card growth, and the advantages of our DebitAdvantage platform. Solutions, Solutions everywhere! Attendees got a first-hand look at the many industry-leading products and solutions we offer to our members at this year’s Solutions Fair –Including CreditAbility, DebitAdvantage, AdvisorsPlus and PayLynx, to name a few. Many of our vendor partners also took part in the Fair to provide attendees with additional information on their services. As always, our evening events were a blast. The weather was picture-perfect for our tropical Welcome Cocktail Party outside on the Piazza. The dinner that followed was fantastic, and even better than the food (and the food was hard to beat!) was entertainment by comedian Buzz Sutherland. Additionally, Cirque’s “LaNouba” was absolutely breathtaking and mesmerizing, though some got a little damp during a huge thunderstorm that erupted as we entered the theater. The post-party at The Fort was also wonderful (especially the Sangria Bar!). Some attendees got invigorated at our Annual Fun Run/Walk at the beautiful Falcon’s Fire Golf Course (congrats to Fun Run winner Dave Obarowski, from TruMark Financial Credit Union, Trevose, PA. Way to go Dave!), and at our Annual Golf Benefit, which once again benefited the Children’s Miracle Network. Thanks to all of you who made this meeting a success! We look forward to seeing you next year in Phoenix. Fall Convenience Check Promotion Deadline ApproachingYour credit union can add value to your credit card portfolio and stimulate activity and balance growth with PSCU Financial Services’ Convenience Check Solution and Check With Statement Solution. What makes these solutions so beneficial for your credit union?Our Convenience Check Solution is designed to activate otherwise dormant accounts and increase usage among your active cardholders. This popular solution can also be used effectively for debt consolidation and balance transfer programs. Additionally, it provides cardholders another means to access cash from their available credit lines. Best of all, the Convenience Check Solution can be fully incorporated into your processing environment easily and cost-effectively. With our Check with Statement Solution, your selected cardholders will receive a convenience check attachment as part of their monthly billing statement. The Check with Statement Solution is offered as a complement to the So, what are you waiting for – Convenience Check Solution and Check with Statement Solution can be used in conjunction with Transaction Level Processing promotions, Credit Limit Increases, AdvisorsPlus campaigns, and many other promotions! The deadline for enrolling in the Fall Convenience Check promotion is June 3, 2005. For more information on how these powerful solutions can help activate your credit union’s dormant accounts, as well as increase cardholders’ balances on active accounts, please contact your Account Executive today! The Knowledge Base Is Coming To MemberConnect!The Knowledge Base, the new credit union online help system, is coming this summer to MemberConnect! The Knowledge Base was designed after polling our members and our internal service personnel about benefits and features they would like to see added to MemberConnect. So, you could say that The Knowledge Base was created for our users, by our users! It features the most asked-about topics and procedures, in addition to detailed instructions on everything from ordering plastics to performing payment inquiries and authorizations. Included are a “quick links” topics listing, a full-text search engine, and even a place to submit a request for a particular procedure or topic you would like to see listed. So, join us this summer as we unveil your PayLynx Online Bill Payment Service Now Offers Same Day And Next Day Bill Payment ProcessingThe new version of PayLynx is here! As scheduled, on March 15th, PSCU Financial Services upgraded over 100 financial institutions to the newest version of CheckFree’s Bill Payment product, version 4.1. By this summer, all of our PayLynx clients will be on the latest version. The most anticipated feature of the upgrade is that more than 50% of consumer payments are eligible to be processed and paid on the same day or the next day. In addition, there is now an online calendar tool that provides the earliest available payment date for each biller, a bill reminder feature that can send you an email reminding you to schedule a payment, and an easy process for adding a biller using only the biller’s phone number. Many of the enhanced features can be found on the central hub page that enables members to easily schedule payments, learn about e-Bills through the integrated demo, view pending and recent payments, and view incoming bills. Kimberley Wrede, Accounting Clerk/Account Management Specialist at Abbey Credit Union, stated, “We were very excited about the Bill Pay upgrade. Now that members have started using the new version they simply love the central payment page and ability to make same day/next day payments.” The PayLynx online bill payment system was developed by PSCU Financial Services to enable our member credit unions to increase member loyalty with an easy-to-use solution that features a seamless link from your credit union’s Web site. With PayLynx, your members can quickly sign-up, view, pay and track bills online – and your member’s needs are supported through PSCU Financial Services 24x7 Contact Center. For additional information on the dynamic PayLynx online bill payment system and the new 4.1 upgrade, please view our demo at and click on “Try the PayLynx demo” or, contact Leslie Reistrup at 800-621-7728 Offer Your Cardholders A Comprehensive Account Management ToolIn today’s competitive market, it is important that you provide your members with solutions that differentiate your credit union from your competition. PSCU Financial Services’ Annual Activity Summary solution will enhance your credit union’s card value by enabling you to provide your members with an easy to read, comprehensive yearly review of their credit card charges. The Annual Activity Summary solution is a valuable account management tool that will assist your members with:
Card transactions are itemized, totaled and sorted according to the posting date in the following categories: The Annual Activity Summary solution can be tailored to meet your credit union’s specific needs, allowing you to:
Choose from two different summary versions:
The summary is generated at year-end and mailed to your credit union during the month of February of each year. Should you have any questions on how you can enhance your credit union’s card value with the Annual Activity Summary solution, please contact your Account Executive today.
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Citadel Federal Credit Union in Thorndale, Pennsylvania, was the first credit union to migrate to our enhanced DebitAdvantage™ processing platform. Citadel, which partners with PSCU Financial Services for credit card processing, successfully converted 80,000 MasterCard signature debit, PIN debit and proprietary ATM accounts in March.
