Visions - September 2005Click a headline below to view articles:
Think You Can't Compete with National Credit Card Issuers—Think Again!One of the major misperceptions in this industry is that local credit unions cannot compete with national credit card offers. Not only can credit unions compete—they actually hold a competitive advantage in this arena for two reasons. First, credit unions have an affinity with their members thanks to strong relationships built upon the consistent delivery of top-quality financial products. Second, PSCU Financial Services member-owners have access to fully featured processing services that offer the same capabilities as the leading national banks. These services are available at an affordable price as a result of our cooperative structure. Credit unions have not traditionally considered credit cards as part of their "core" portfolio of financial services—but that perception needs to change. Credit cards represent a means to strengthen relationships with members, while building a strong revenue stream. Credit cards can be the highest returning asset a credit union has. The target ROA for credit cards runs in the 3-5 percent range; as compared to the credit union's overall ROA which is around 1 percent. Higher Usage For Other ServicesIn addition to income gained from balances and transaction fees, credit cardholders boost profitability through usage of other credit union services as well. According to a Raddon Financial Groups study:
Higher Usage For Other ServicesWe believe so strongly in the exceptional value of credit card programs that we introduced pre-funded card promotions available to all our member-owners. As part of this special offer, PSCU Financial Services will pay for marketing costs for both acquisition and activation promotions, including credit bureau prescreens, member letter creative design, copywriting, printing and postage. While the promotions are somewhat standardized based on current best practices, credit unions retain the ability to determine interest rates and to set terms. Contact your Account Executive for more information about our pre-funded offers as well as the benefits of working with our experienced AdvisorsPlus team. "Center of Excellence" Certification Awarded to PSCU Financial Services' Contact Centers
According to numbers compiled by the Purdue University Center, PSCU Financial Services' Contact Centers have twice as many satisfied customers than the industry average and a smaller number of abandoned calls. Calls are also answered more quickly and issues are resolved more efficiently than other industry contact centers. "Our goal is to deliver exceptional customer service and generate member loyalty for our member-owner credit unions. It is certainly very rewarding to see that our Centers excel in so many areas and to learn from a respected expert in this field that we are at the top of the industry," said David J. Serlo, President and CEO, PSCU Financial Services. Other companies that have also achieved Center of Excellence Certification include eBay, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Farmers Insurance and Pottery Barn. CURewards™ Provides Chance For A Quick Million
One lucky cardholder will win a quick million CURewards points and nine others will be awarded substantial point prizes, too --- just for using their CURewards credit union plastic. As part of the CURewards program, points may be redeemed for appliances, jewelry, electronics and a wide variety of merchandise as well as airline tickets, cruises, car rentals and other travel opportunities. "Rewards programs have proven to be extremely successful in reaching and retaining top-of-wallet attention. The CURewards sweepstakes promotion is an innovative way for our credit union member-owners to encourage acceptance and utilization of their debit and credit card programs," said PSCU Financial Services President David J. Serlo. " The Quick Million promotion is the third CURewards sweepstakes that we have underwritten as part of our continuing commitment to help our members build profitable, successful credit and debit programs," said Serlo. Hook Local Classrooms Into the Power of Colonial WilliamsburgThe "Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips" launches another new season of live interactive television broadcasts focusing on our American heritage beginning in October with an exploration of the history of education in America called "A Publick Education." This first of seven live events begins a series of award winning and engaging programs with topics such as science, trades, slavery, women's roles and the life of a soldier in the Revolution that will educate and inspire students and teachers alike throughout your service area. Supporting this initiative reaps educational and recognition rewards right in your hometown. The Emmy nominated programs are delivered into classrooms by partner PBS stations, cable operators and live streaming video via the Internet. Any school can participate in questioning Colonial Williamsburg historians, interpreters and even some familiar people such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Last year, member credit unions provided scholarships that reached thousands of students across the country helping to boost our overall viewership into the millions. Credit Union ImpactAccording to Sam Chesser, BrightStar Credit Union in Ft. Lauderdale, "Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips have provided a means for BrightStar Credit Union to give back to our core group—the Broward County School District. The students and teachers at our 25 sponsored schools love the Field Trips. They learn from them, and they are very grateful to the Credit Union for our support. Sponsoring outstanding educational programs like these is one way that BrightStar Credit Union demonstrates its commitment to Broward Schools." Make History Come To LifeWhat do educators think about the Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips? Suzanne Sunday, a Maryland educator says, "Colonial Williamsburg Electronic field trips help me make social studies much more than names, dates, places and events. The actors in the broadcasts make history come to life. The use of character interpreters to answer student questions further humanizes history, especially when their attitudes toward each other are displayed in tone and body language." Join the growing list of participating member credit unions that are expressing their commitment to the educational needs of their local communities by contacting Merry Pateuk at (800) 932-7728 or public_relations@pscufs.com to register your interest in helping children come face-to-face with the "idea of America." The motto at The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is "that the future may learn from the past." Your sponsorship of Electronic Field Trips will help ensure that your future members will understand and appreciate the heritage of this great land. For more information about the Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips, visit www.history.org/teach where you will find many of the early American history resources that Colonial Williamsburg provides for teachers and students. Or contact Dale Van Eck, Manager Education Partnerships, at 757-565-8687 or dvaneck@cwf.org. DebitAdvantage™ Real-Time Management ToolsOver 31 PSCU Financial Services member credit unions, representing 750,000 debit cardholders, are reaping the benefits of our integrated debit card platform's Internet accessible tool that gives them real-time access to all of the resources and information they need to manage their Debit and ATM programs. This user-friendly web-based interface benefits all functional areas of the credit union including exception processing, marketing, operations and member support.Users can troubleshoot transaction problems online and make adjustments as needed, download reports, obtain terminal summary data and more. Want to learn more? Call us at 800-245-7728 ext 4219 or email debit@pscufs.com for details. Security Concerns Get Top PriorityRecent security breaches at companies that collect, store and sell personal data - such as CardSystems Solutions, ChoicePoint, LexisNexis and Bank of America—individually and collectively cast a spotlight on privacy and security issues. PSCU Financial Services is acutely aware of its duty to safeguard the valuable and sensitive data that it accesses in the course of servicing our member-owner credit unions on a variety of solutions including credit, debit, and bill pay. To strengthen our security posture we have:
PSCU Financial Services continues to evaluate new technologies and review internal policies to ensure our security measures provide the greatest levels of protection for the systems and data we use and access. Promotional Rates Drive Card UsageWant to entice your members to always reach for your credit union's plastic during the busiest shopping season of the year? It's simple. Create customized promotional credit card rate campaigns to attract new cardholders, stimulate card usage, and grow balances with our Transaction Level Processing Solution (TLP). TLP promotions can have a start date of either the 1st or 15th day of the month. Go to www.pscufs.com and log on MemberConnect. Hit QuickLinks to view the Marketing Planning Calendar for enrollment information. CUAlways™ Welcomes Two More Credit Unions To Member Services ProgramPSCU Financial Services is pleased to welcome Massachusetts State Employees Credit Union (Boston, MA) and The Tennessee Credit Union (Nashville, TN) to its CUAlways program. CUAlways is PSCU Financial Services' solution for providing various member services beyond credit, debit, and bill pay to credit unions. Mass State intends to use CUAlways in a full, 24 x 7 turnkey mode where all telephoned member service requests to the credit union will be redirected to PSCU Financial Services for processing. "We have limited member services capacity, so CUAlways was a natural way for us to extend our availability while at the same time reducing costs," said Ed Connors, Chief Operations Officer for Mass State. "Plus, PSCU Financial Services has been a great partner for us so we felt comfortable in letting them handle our members' requests for service." The Tennessee Credit Union plans to use CUAlways in overflow and after-hours modes to ensure their members' service requests can be fulfilled even when the credit union is closed at nights or on weekends, or when phone traffic during normal hours overtaxes their current staff. PSCU Financial Services is in the final steps of integrating CUAlways with the FiServ Users data processing platform. Once this work is completed, any credit union on the Users platform will be able to leverage the reduced expenses and extended service availability that CUAlways offers. Future integration plans for CUAlways include the Summit and Symitar platforms by year-end 2005, which will extend the scope of CUAlways to an even greater number of credit unions. Visa Announces New Brand MarkVisa is refreshing its brand mark and implementing a new card design that offers greater flexibility along with increased security features. As part of the changes that allow for more space on the face of your credit union's plastic that can be custom designed, the flying V logo on the front of all cards will be replaced with a smaller more modern Visa logo. All micro-text will move from the front to the back of the Visa card. The signature panel will be enhanced for greater security and can be customized to meet your credit union's requirements. In the past the CVV2 code was subject to wear and tear. With the new specifications, the CVV2 code will be moved from the signature panel to the card's body, giving it long-term clarity, while the security grid and VOID panel will be located under the signature panel. The changes outlined do not have to be implemented immediately, and there is no need to destroy card stock. Just migrate to the new design with your next reissue cycle. Visa will phase in the changes with the launch of the new brand mark in January 2006. By September 2006, all new stock card orders must be in compliance with the latest standards. All Visa cards in circulation must carry the new marks by December 2010. Populate Online Functionality With Card DataCredit unions that want the ultimate flexibility and control of credit card information can achieve that—and more—with the Data eXchange solution from PSCU Financial Services. This leading-edge integration technology delivers raw data from external sources for the credit union to use, analyze, format, display and store. This solution produces data on demand—when and where it's needed. Data eXchange is an attractive data delivery method for populating credit unions' online applications and presenting data to employees who are providing customer service or other functions. State Employees' Credit Union in North Carolina is one of the first credit unions to apply this technology to achieve a fully integrated presentation of data from different sources to its online users. "We deployed Data eXchange to integrate credit card data with our other online applications. All the information, regardless of its origin, shares the same look and feel," explained Rick Rhoads, the credit union's Senior Vice President of E-Services. "The implementation was straight forward and the application is very fast and robust." With Data eXchange, each credit union is free to display data in a variety of ways, including populating web pages for member use, combining it with other data as part of an internal application, storing it in a database, or shipping it to another system. Integrating data from many end points into a single user interface can reduce internal training costs, increase user satisfaction and provide each credit union with greater control over application functionality. "Data eXchange technology achieves seamless integration into a host system. Several host processors including Harland and Users have integrated our Data eXchange solution into their home banking and core servicing systems," said David J. Serlo, President, PSCU Financial Services. "There is no need for a credit union to make an investment in custom programming. The host processors have taken the steps to weave that data directly into their systems." PSCU Financial Services also hosts credit union-branded sites that enable credit cardholders to retrieve information online. "The convenience of a custom-branded credit card data site that is hosted by a third-party is still a very attractive option for many credit unions," said Serlo. To learn more about the Data eXchange solution, contact PSCU Financial Services at 800-443-7728 extension 7877. No Charge for Back to SchoolAt PSCU Financial Services, we know how important it is that people are well trained and continuously challenged. To make sure that your credit union employees have the necessary tools to perform their jobs proficiently, we offer a wealth of educational seminars and resources – all available at no charge. Registration is a click away on MemberConnect. Faster Access To Cardholder CorrespondenceBeginning on October 31, 2005 credit union staff will have more timely access to the cardholder correspondence (bankruptcy notifications, consumer credit counseling notices, address change remittance slips, and the like) that PSCU Financial Services receives and delivers via U.S. Mail to our member credit unions. Using our image technology this cardholder correspondence will be scanned and posted online for authorized credit union staff to view at our company's secure member-only MemberConnect site. The Daily Correspondence Download items posted will be stored online for four months for easy retrieval. Simply log on to www.pscufs.com and click on MemberConnect. Once you enter your name and password you'll launch the member-only home page. On the upper right hand side of the page, you’ll find the box titled Quicklinks. Click on the listing for PSCU-FS Web Reports and you'll be directed to the page that provides your credit union's "Daily Correspondence Download" items for your review. Need assistance logging on or help navigating the site? Your Account Management Specialist can help. Call 800-789-7728 or 800-325-7728 and we'll get your inquiries resolved. Our MemberConnect site provides a wealth of information to help issuers manage credit union card programs. So mark your calendar for the October 31st enhancement to begin delivery of cardholder correspondence to your desktop designed to make internal workflow processes more timely and efficient. Marketing Best Practices WorkshopBuild A Successful Marketing PlanAre you looking to maximize your marketing dollar and improve your relationships with your members? Maybe your strategy is to increase awareness of your credit union's offerings, grow balances or strengthen member relationships. To help you get there we are hosting a one day Marketing Best Practices Workshop to share research and best practices about the financial desires and needs of youth, young adults, Hispanics and small businesses—as well as provide an understanding of the right product offering and presentation for maximum sales results. This workshop for credit union marketing professionals is designed to be fast-paced, highly interactive and actionable. Participants will move between receiving relevant market research and industry best practices to small round table discussions uniquely matched with peers facing similar marketing challenges. PSCU Financial Services is excited to announce the addition of Filene Research Institute executives to the agenda. Mark Meyer, Director of Innovation will provide his insights on the youth and young adults market. Lois Kitsch, Director of Field Project, will share her experience with developing your Hispanic member relationships. The Marketing Best Practices Workshop will be held on Wednesday, October 26, 2005 in St. Petersburg, Florida at our corporate headquarters. We'll lead attendees through the paces of actually building a marketing plan and equipping them with the tools to implement credit and debit card marketing programs at their credit union that drive results. Each will depart the workshop with a customized marketing plan specifically drafted for their unique credit union. Visit us at www.pscufs.com to register guaranteeing your participation at this valuable opportunity to network with other credit union marketing professionals.
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PSCU Financial Services' Contact Centers have been certified as Centers of Excellence by the Purdue University Center for Customer-Driven Quality. This organization maintains the largest database of contact center metrics in the world and has patented its methodology for measuring call center performance. 
Over 175 member credit unions issuing CURewards™ on either their credit or debit cards are generating excitement and buzz around their card programs and building balances with our turnkey 'Quick Million' CURewards Sweepstakes. Aimed at making the most of the holiday shopping season, each cardholder transaction made between October 1 and December 31, 2005 qualifies as an automatic entry into the 2005 'Quick Million' Sweepstakes. 
