Author: Communications

St. Petersburg, Fla.— (Dec. 14, 2021) — PSCU, the nation’s premier payments credit union service organization (CUSO), has announced its annual patronage dividend for the 2021 fiscal year of $17.8 million, with 30% being distributed in cash. As part of its commitment to helping Owner credit unions succeed and prosper, PSCU’s total cash distribution to Owners for its annual patronage dividend this year is $15.2 million, including $7.3 million in capital credits and $2.6 million in revolving funds. Since its founding, PSCU has distributed more than $621.4 million in patronage dividends, with more than 54% paid in cash.

“Despite the additional challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic over the last year, PSCU continued to deliver on our commitments to our credit unions and their members,” said Chuck Fagan, president and CEO of PSCU. “PSCU concluded Fiscal Year 2021 with strong top- and bottom-line results, and we continue to invest a significant portion of our top-line revenue in capital expenditures to fuel future investments that help our credit unions drive growth and positively impact member experience. We remain committed to providing both ongoing investments in innovation and a strong dividend program for our Owners, providing the right mix of products and solutions, as well as additional liquidity to help our credit unions achieve their strategic and operational objectives.”

Highlights from the past fiscal year include:

• Continued acceleration of PSCU’s digital-first strategy. Now in the second year of its three-year $100 million investment announced at the beginning of 2020, PSCU continues to invest in solutions, technology and infrastructure to help credit unions remain competitive and grow. In June 2021, PSCU’s Board of Directors approved an additional $10 million investment in its data strategy to further enrich the key insights credit unions need to optimize their business. And in August 2021, the CUSO announced an additional $54 million investment in Lumin Digital, its cloud-native digital banking company, which now has more than 30 credit unions and over 1.6 million users under contract – with more implementations in process and a strong pipeline in place.
• Continued investment in cutting-edge fraud mitigation tools, including Linked Analysis, PSCU’s proprietary approach to intercepting and predicting fraud. PSCU’s industry-leading security practices saved Owners nearly $500 million in potential fraud dollars in fiscal year 2021, while preserving successful member experiences.
• Implementation of automated, efficient servicing tools for a seamless experience. Following a successful pilot in late 2020, Unified Agent Desktop is a new tool in PSCU’s contact centers that helps reduce call times, enabling more single-call resolutions, improved efficiency through automation and a better member experience. Other new automation capabilities continue to help increase the quality and speed of PSCU implementations and project delivery, while self-service tools for credit unions – like the new PSCU Service Portal, powered by ServiceNow – enable credit unions to see holistic real-time views of projects in queue. PSCU has also partnered with market-leading technology organizations to create an efficient, transparent disputes experience that will deliver enhanced resolution speed and real-time visibility, which will have a measurable impact over the next two years.
• Continued investment in a highly diverse, engaged workforce. Now more than 3,000 employees strong, PSCU continues to recruit and retain top talent at all levels of our organization. While the vast majority of the organization remains in a remote environment, PSCU’s employee engagement levels remain at an all-time high.The company also made the strategic decision to establish Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) as a standalone function at PSCU and have appointed a dedicated leader to further its work, both internally and throughout our industry, around this important area.
• Publication of industry-leading thought leadership, including the monthly PSCU Payments Index, which provides insight into consumer spending trends, geographic and demographic data and analysis, as well as deep dives into topical categories and events.

Owners benefit from PSCU’s investments by sharing in the financial returns that are distributed through the company’s annual dividend. PSCU’s cooperative structure enables distribution of the company’s earnings to its Owner credit unions as tax-free patronage dividends. The origin of PSCU’s model is collaboration and scale, and the company has leveraged its influence on behalf of credit unions and their members for more than 40 years.

The Annual Meeting of PSCU’s Owner credit unions will be held virtually in April 2022 with additional details forthcoming.

 

About PSCU
PSCU, the nation’s premier payments CUSO, supports the success of more than 1,900 credit unions representing nearly 7 billion transactions annually. Committed to service excellence and focused on innovation, PSCU’s payment processing, risk management, data and analytics, loyalty programs, digital banking, marketing, strategic consulting and mobile platforms help deliver possibilities and seamless member experiences. Comprehensive, 24/7/365 member support is provided by contact centers located throughout the United States. The origin of PSCU’s model is collaboration and scale, and the company has leveraged its influence on behalf of credit unions and their members for more than 40 years. Today, PSCU provides an end-to-end, competitive advantage that enables credit unions to securely grow and meet evolving consumer demands. For more information, visit pscu.com.

Travel Spending Rebounds in Dramatic Fashion over the Thanksgiving Holiday

For Release on December 9, 2021:

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, California – Credit union cardholders hit the road and hosted big feasts this Thanksgiving, transacting with gas, grocery and travel merchants at rates sometimes more than double those in 2020. The findings are a part of CO-OP Financial Services’ analysis of card transaction data from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday 2021.

Among many additional insights, the analysis shows the volume of gas purchases up 101 percent year-over-year; lodging up nearly 50 percent; grocery purchases up 82 percent; and other travel transactions up 92 percent. The “other travel” segment includes things like airline, car rental, travel agency, cruise line, toll and parking transactions. All combined travel segments were up an impressive 98 percent in volume and 115 percent in spend.

Travel spending overshadowed online gift shopping, which saw only slight increases as compared to 2020 in CO-OP’s analysis. It’s an observation echoed by Adobe Analytics, which reported Black Friday and Cyber Monday decreases in year-over-year sales.

“It’s clear credit union members were anxious to rejoin their families and friends in celebration of the holiday this year, often prioritizing getting together over online shopping,” said Beth Phillips, Managing Director, Strategic Portfolio Growth, for CO-OP. “However, the dramatic increase in travel spending was a welcome rebound for credit unions. Travel activity alone yielded an aggregate interchange increase of more than 431 percent for CO-OP’s card issuing partners.”

It was evident hosts were entertaining their guests outside the home, as well, with restaurants and recreation categories experiencing significant activity. Dining purchase totals were up 60 percent on credit and 46 percent on debit year-over-year. Recreation purchases were up as well, with a 27 percent increase on credit and 14 percent on debit.

Computer, Retail and Digital Goods Experience Bumps in Activity

Although Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales growth remained on the smaller side, CO-OP analysis revealed a few merchant category winners: computers were up 64 percent, retail up 42 percent and digital goods up 40 percent.

“The increase in computer sales is interesting,” said Phillips. “We’re likely seeing a couple of trends play out there, namely fears over lingering chip shortages and the continuation of work- and learn-from-home circumstances in various pockets throughout the country.”

Indeed, out-of-stock messages in November 2021 were up 258 percent vs. November 2019, with electronics being among the highest categories of out-of-stock goods.

Two categories that experienced year-over-year declines were camping (down 14 percent) and office supplies (down 4 percent). This may be due to heavy pandemic-inspired purchases of campers and equipment, printers and paper during the lockdowns and remote-working days of 2020.

Debit Purchases on Amazon Decline for Third Consecutive Year

As for holiday gift shopping, CO-OP’s analysis revealed several important trends. Chief among them, debit purchases on Amazon declined for the third year in a row, suggesting consumers are more comfortable shopping at this major online retailer with a credit card. While the number of credit transactions only outpaced debit transactions by 2 percent, credit generated a 17-percent year-over-year increase in interchange vs. debit’s 10-percent increase.

Consumer preference for credit cards this holiday extended beyond Amazon. Debit card purchases in grocery stores, for instance, did not increase at all as compared to 2020. Credit card purchases in grocery stores, on the other hand, increased 82 percent. Retail purchases via credit were up 42 percent, whereas debit purchases in the retail environment were up just 4 percent.

The preference for credit cards may be due to several factors, including the scaling back of government stimulus. This can also be seen in consumer use of emerging credit access tools, such as buy now pay later (BNPL). On Cyber Monday alone, BNPL providers reported a 21-percent year-over-year increase in revenue.

However, average transaction totals processed by CO-OP were similar across debit and credit at roughly $47 per transaction regardless of the card type. This indicates consumers perceive additional benefits to credit card use beyond access to credit, such as rewards and/or fraud protection.

“Data on consumer card spending continues to underscore the value of offering members access to multiple payment vehicles,” said Phillips. “When the go-to debit card isn’t a viable option – maybe there’s been a job loss or change in personal cash flow – members still want to rely on their trusted credit union for day-to-day money movement. Whether it’s a credit card, a peer-to-peer network or a BNPL-style solution, its vital to offer members different ways to transact. That’s how credit unions maintain primary financial relationships during the financial disruptions everyone experiences at one time or another, pandemic or not.”

 

About CO-OP Financial Services

CO-OP Financial Services is a payments and financial technology company whose mission is ensuring the success of the credit union movement. CO-OP payments solutions, engagement services and strategic counsel help credit unions optimize member experiences to consistently provide seamless, personalized multi-channel offerings, while delivering secure, sophisticated fraud mitigation service. For more information, visit www.co-opfs.org.

Real-time Scoring Enables Credit Unions to Reduce False Positives, Fraud Chargebacks and Fraud Losses, Delivering an Exceptional Payments Experience for Members

RANCHO CUCAMONGA, California (December 6, 2021) – CO-OP Financial Services has added a new tool to its expanding suite of COOPER-branded machine learning fraud detection and prevention solutions. COOPER Fraud Score is a credit union-focused, real-time scoring tool designed to accurately detect more fraud, helping credit unions react quickly to emerging trends, ultimately building member confidence in their credit union-issued cards.

COOPER Fraud Score creates a risk score in real-time that is then applied to transaction authorization requests. This score is delivered to a range of decisioning tools within CO-OP’s fraud prevention ecosystem, with CO-OP fraud prevention consultants setting custom strategies for individual credit unions.

CO-OP’s launch of the solution is well-timed, as analysts predict the pandemic-related increase in digital payments will lead to a dramatic rise in payments fraud risk into 2022. The tool enables a predictive approach to fraud prevention through a supervised machine learning model fully focused on the credit union industry. COOPER Fraud Score addresses problematic vulnerabilities, such as BIN attacks, which have plagued many card issuers since the COVID-19 outbreak.

WestStar Credit Union in Las Vegas, Nevada, served as a beta test site for COOPER Fraud Score. According to Rick Schmidt, President/CEO of the credit union, COOPER outperformed WestStar’s current fraud solution on all transactions where both systems scored suspicious transactions. “There was a lift of up to 30 percent in the set of velocity checking data where the other system tried and failed,” said Schmidt. “We didn’t know we could engage with something as sophisticated as COOPER.”

According to Bruce Dragt, Chief Product Officer for CO-OP, speed is a critical capability in today’s dynamic threat environment.

“The beauty of real-time transaction data and machine learning technology is immediacy,” said Dragt. “The technology generates cost savings from reduced false positives, fraud chargebacks and fraud losses. Just as importantly, though, is the increased trust and reliability members gain when they experience fewer hiccups in the day-to-day movement of money. COOPER Fraud Score’s advanced fraud-fighting technology helps buoy the primary financial relationships credit unions are working so hard to earn and maintain.”

“A key differentiator for COOPER Fraud Score is the integrated team of credit union-centric experts working alongside the technology,” said Dragt. “CO-OP’s fraud team consists of data scientists, prevention consultants and detection analysts, all working to monitor COOPER Fraud Score and apply its use in fraud-fighting strategies. Continually learning from the solution’s data feedback loop, as well as emerging fraud trends and use cases, the team is highly focused on outcomes and model efficacy. Because they understand credit unions as much as they do fraud risk, the member experience is always a top priority.”

More information about COOPER Fraud Score can be found by visiting www.co-opfs.org/Solutions.

 

About CO-OP Financial Services

CO-OP Financial Services is a payments and financial technology company whose mission is ensuring the success of the credit union movement. CO-OP payments solutions, engagement services and strategic counsel help credit unions optimize member experiences to consistently provide seamless, personalized multi-channel offerings, while delivering secure, sophisticated fraud mitigation service. For more information, visit www.coop.org.