ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. —PSCU has launched the PSCU Payments Index, which it is calling the next evolution of the CUSO’s successful consumer payments trend analysis.
In the new monthly publication, PSCU said it will provide its credit unions and the broader market with timely data, analysis and thought leadership to help make informed, strategic decisions.
“As the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have surpassed the one-year mark, year-over-year performance trends are now influenced by the significant shifts in consumer behavior experienced over the past year,” the company said. “Following the success of PSCU’s Transaction Insights, a weekly analysis comparing year-over-year transactions from its owner credit union members to identify the impact of COVID-19 on consumer spending and shopping trends that was published from March 2020 through March 2021, the new monthly PSCU Payments Index uses 2019 purchasing history as a baseline comparison for 2021 results, as well as a comparison to 2020.”
‘Very Important Time for CUs’
PSCU said the three-year view provides both a pre-pandemic comparison and insight into how consumer behavior continues to evolve since the impacts of 2020.
“We are excited to launch the PSCU Payments Index at a very important time for our credit unions – following a challenging, transformative year in which digital payments adoption was accelerated to the forefront,” said Jeremiah Lotz, managing vice president, Digital and Data at PSCU. “Over the past year, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback from our owner credit unions and industry partners on our weekly Transaction Insights, indicating a need and appetite for this relevant data. As we collectively look forward to the post-pandemic world, we hope that the data and analysis provided in the Payments Index will help our credit unions make better informed decisions to enhance their members’ experience and enable sustained growth.”
Access to Benchmarks
According to the company, financial institutions that process with PSCU can access comparable reports to benchmark their own membership data with the PSCU Payments Index for debit, credit and ATM transactions via Member Insight, the CUSO’s comprehensive data analytics and reporting tool.
PSCU said its Payments Index leverages its Data Science and Analytics tools that analyze data from billions of transactions annually, and includes the following:
- Three-year and current transaction trends data
- Deep dives into different merchant sectors
- Thought leadership and analysis
- Perspective and insights from PSCU and industry leaders
- U.S. state and territory analysis on debit purchases, credit purchases and ATM transactions
- Infographics and charts to illustrate and explain data trends
‘Accurate & Relevant’
“All credit unions included in the PSCU Payments Index dataset have been processing with PSCU from the start of 2019 through the most current week of 2021, enabling an accurate and relevant three-year, same-store comparison (2019 vs. 2020 vs. 2021) for purchasing behaviors and data,” PSCU stated. In PSCU’s previous weekly Transaction Insights reporting, the year-over-year comparisons used a consistent two-year population of credit unions, comparing transaction and purchase data each week. As the Payments Index uses the same-store population across the entire three-year period, there may be slight differences in results if the Payments Index outputs are compared to past Transaction Insights reports.”
The first PSCU Payments Index, which includes a deep dive into the Travel sector, is available for download. An archive of PSCU’s weekly Transaction Insights is also available on the PSCU Insights page as the company has sunset its COVID-19 resource page.