CSG, Credit Union Processor, Licenses Banc One's Triumph Software

Banc One Corp.'s Triumph card processing software has scored another victory.

CSG Card Services, a division of the Credit Union National Association, announced last week that it purchased a license to use the much publicized software for its card operations.

The move was expected.

The big credit union processor has been using Triumph through Banc One to process 2.1 million card accounts. The CUNA unit also helped develop the software with Banc One and Andersen Consulting in a project dating back to 1988.

"We had an early buy arrangement," said Keith Floen, president of CSG. "We got a good price," he added, although he would not say how much the company paid for the license.

Ohio-based Banc One handled third-party processing for CSG for 20 years but "we always understood the ultimate objective was for (CSG) to become self-sufficient as a processor for credit unions," said Mark Young, vice president of marketing at Banc One.

Other Triumph users include American Express, which signed its deal with Banc One in February; Barclays Bank in Britain; Banco Nacional de Mexico, or Banamex; and Gesellschaft fur Zahlungssysteme, or GZS, a card processing company owned by German banks.

GZS recently converted 600,000 accounts to Triumph, while the other users are in various stages of rollout.

Mr. Floen said the system will be customized for CSG's 2,500 credit union clients. Because credit unions are more likely than bank issuers to have multiple relationships with cardholders, special promotions and pricing based on the number of accounts a consumer has with the credit union will be easier to implement with modified software.

CSG announced a related outsourcing deal with Alltel Information Services, the processor formerly known as Systematics. Alltel will run Triumph for CSG's five million card accounts at its technology center in Little Rock.

While Mr. Floen said CSG has the "economies of scale " to run the program in-house, it can not provide a second system for "disaster recovery," in case the computers go down.

"Alltel runs 70 data processing centers around the country with 8,000 systems people," said Mr. Floen.

Along with equipment, Alltel will provide training to CSG staff, and will help the company "hire the right people" and manage the software, said Mr. Floen.

Banc One will continue to provide maintenance for the next three years, keeping CSG's Triumph software up to speed with any Visa or MasterCard rule changes.

Banc One runs 8.5 million accounts on the software, including the CSG customers, which will be transferred to the licensed copy over the course of the year.

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