PSCU Financial Services’ Chief Risk Officer To Speak at BAI Conference

Steve Ruwe to Discuss Proactive Detection Methods for Online Bill Payment Fraud

St. Petersburg, FL, September 8, 2008 – PSCU Financial Services’ Chief Risk Officer Steve Ruwe will give a presentation about proactive methods to detect fraud in online bill payment transactions on Monday, Oct. 20, at the BAI Combating Payments Fraud Conference at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

PSCU Financial Services, the nation’s largest credit union service organization (CUSO), employs sophisticated FraudNet technology to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions before they occur.
Ruwe’s presentation, entitled “Casting a Net to Catch Online Payment Fraud,” will discuss how the cooperative has achieved a 97 percent fraud detection rate for the 2.7 million bill payments generated by their members each month. This session will identify the key metrics used by PSCU Financial Services to identify suspicious payments and present the importance of the "human element" in successful fraud detection and prevention.

“It’s important for credit unions to be able to catch fraud before it happens to their members. That requires the use of a progressively intelligent fraud detection system like CheckFree’s FraudNet and a 24/7 team of specialized employees who are trained to validate whether flagged transactions are suspicious,” said Ruwe. “While some organizations focus on technology alone, we believe the most effective deterrent requires both a highly trained, dedicated fraud team and industry-leading technology.”

FraudNet gains intelligence through the collection of information from all participating network partners. Social security numbers, email addresses, account numbers and other data related to attempted or successful fraudulent activities are compiled to create a massive database that gets more comprehensive and more powerful each time it is updated.

The cooperative, which services 700,000 online bill payment subscribers, was the first in the credit union industry to offer FraudNet to credit unions and their members. FraudNet meets FFIEC (Federal Financial Institution Examination Council) multi-factor authentication requirements.

PSCU Financial Services

Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, PSCU Financial Services is the nation's largest credit union service organization (CUSO) and serves more than 1,100 financial institutions nationwide. As a non-profit cooperative, the company is owned by more than 500 member credit unions representing over 11 million cardholder accounts and more than 700,000 online bill payment subscribers. Its Contact Center handles more than 14 million inquiries a year. PSCU Financial Services maintains an Eastern operations center in St. Petersburg, Florida, and a Western operations center based in Phoenix, Arizona. The cooperative’s wholly owned subsidiary, Digital Dialogue, operates two 24/7 call centers in Detroit, Michigan that specialize in member services, new member acquisition, cross-selling and automated lending solutions.

Established in 1977, the company provides a broad array of cost-effective, high quality financial services that include credit, debit, ATM, prepaid, bill payment, online banking, and contact center solutions. PSCU Financial Services uniquely offers its members a full range of processing options, any combination from full service to in-house pass through processing for credit, debit and ATM transactions. As a leader in the credit union movement, the company offers gateway access to national and regional networks. It also provides full function ATM terminal driving services.

For more information, visit PSCU Financial Services’ website at www.pscufs.com.

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