By Ray Birch
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—Saying COVID-19 has been the “great accelerator” to innovation in the past year, Chuck Fagan outlined what PSCU has done to address the rapid changes that have occurred, as well as what credit unions need to do, too.
“COVID-19 has fast-tracked innovation as consumers have rapidly adopted digital and contactless forms of payments,” stated the PSCU president and CEO during the CUSO’s 2021 Virtual Member Forum.
Among the steps PSCU has taken in the past year, said Fagan, is to work with credit unions to help them meet their members where they are—and that includes keeping their cards top of the digital wallet.
Top of wallet status has become increasingly important as consumers make more purchases online and also have recurring expenses for various streaming services. The card that’s top of wallet becomes the default card, generating steady interchange for the card issuer.
Fagan stressed the importance of top-of-wallet position, noting it’s “very hard to recover” when that preference changes.
Consumer payments preferences were changing even before the pandemic began shifting behavior, noted Fagan.
“More consumers are adopting digital banking and downloading payment apps and changing the ways in which they interact with their financial institutions,” Fagan said. “PSCU continues to support our credit unions’ needs for digital modernization.”
$50 Million Investment
PSCU, Fagan pointed out, in 2021 alone will invest nearly $50 million in capital and will roll out more technology than ever before.
That will drive PSCU investments—such as helping credit unions deliver a seamless member experience. The company has also helped credit unions get behind the explosion in contactless plastic. Fagan said PSCU helped CUs deliver more than 6.8 million new contactless cards last year alone.
“This has helped credit unions support mass reissuance strategies during the calendar year 2020,” said Fagan. “So far this year, 64% of all cards ordered have been contactless.”
This past year, too, PSCU has helped its owner credit unions and the industry at large keep abreast of consumers’ changing payments habits, having leveraged its deep data to publish a weekly analysis, comparing year-over-year transactions on a same store basis, according to Fagan.
That report has now evolved to become the PSCU Payments Index, a new monthly publication that was recently introduced.
Expanded Contact Center
Chuck Fagan
Fagan pointed out PSCU’s contact center capability has been markedly enhanced in the past year, and that investments in that area will continue. The company is also allocating funds to data science and analytics.
“This is a critical differentiator for PSCU,” said Fagan, who added the organization’s end-to-end data science and analytics portfolio allows credit unions to deeply analyze their data to create a holistic view of member behavior and drive actionable insights.
As CUToday.info has reported, consumers have flocked to buy now pay later options that have become widely available during the health crisis. Fagan pointed out PSCU recently introduced its installment payment offering.
“It will be designed to provide credit unions a real opportunity to meet the continued demand for new, convenient payment options … giving credit union members the freedom to budget as needed and to have more control over their finances,” he said.
Member Dispute Optimization
The company is also focused on member disputes optimization, and fraud prevention and mitigation. The CEO said PSCU will be focused in the coming year on combatting fraud via a multi-layered approach.
“PSCU’s proprietary Linked Analysis solution helped us stop nearly $500 million in potential fraud for our members over the past year,” he said. “Along with the development of a cutting-edge fraud alert program leveraging FICO customer communication services, we've recently launched the new PSCU service portal…It will help advance our delivery of quality service to our owners. Through this portal we're able to provide more self-service opportunities for our credit unions, increasing our speed to deliver and enhance member experiences.”
Fagan said investments will continue to be made in its successful Lumin Digital arm.
“We continue to upgrade the capabilities here,” he said. “Lumin digital continues to receive outstanding reviews, providing a seamless integration to a wide variety of PSCU and other platform tools and capabilities.”
Community & Employee Focus
PSCU, too, has been focused on the communities credit unions serve, its own employees and racial equality over the past, turbulent year.
“At PSCU we all work toward a common mission and are guided by a set of shared values, and we're all so very committed to helping those in need,” Fagan said. “Over the past year I'm proud to share that PSCU employees gave in record numbers to our various philanthropic efforts, including our COVID-19 and other charities, like the Children's Miracle Network. I'm very proud of all of our employees’ efforts during times when it's needed most.
Since the pandemic struck the U.S., Fagan said he has never been more proud to be part of the credit union movement.
“Our cooperative is financially healthy we have a unique balance of record returns to owners and industry-leading investments and innovation,” concluded Fagan. “Our strategic plan is working and we're well positioned to execute on behalf of our members and capture market opportunities…Our members are at the heart of everything we do.”