Over the past several years PSCU Financial Services, Inc. has focused on delivering high demand consumer-facing online services, such as electronic bill payment and online credit card account data for credit unions to compete effectively in the Internet delivery channel.
The next wave of products features technology and benefits for a different audience credit unions, Internet banking providers, and data processors. These new services promise higher levels of integration and flexibility for institutions seeking to deepen the bonds with their members.
Integration is clearly a hot topic for credit unions and their processing partners. From an Internet banking perspective, the seamless melding of additional financial services, like bill payment and credit card data, with the institution's banking application, is a huge convenience for the consumer.
"Seamless integration yields benefits beyond mere convenience though," said David Serlo, President of PSCU Financial Services. "Bill payment industry data indicates that giving your members the capability to access online bill payment without the need for additional authentication leads to nearly three times the subscriber growth over methods that require the user to enter another username and password. This growth trend based on the Single Sign On (SSO) access method is significant."
PayLynx The Bill Pay System for Credit Unions
Study after study confirms that online bill pay users represent an institution's most profitable member base. According to Bank of America statistics, online banking users that have electronic bill payment have 45% more accounts, 40% higher deposits, 55% higher loan balances, are 50% to 70% more profitable, and are 50% less likely to leave. The products must work simply for the consumers.
"The PayLynx SSO solution ensures seamless integration with CheckFree, the top online bill payment platform in the industry," Serlo noted. "PayLynx SSO supports automatic enrollment, error handling and consolidated logon. For credit unions with time-to-market and implementation cost concerns, PayLynx SSO offers a quick, reliable and affordable solution."
* PayLynx provides a streamlined SSO solution to CheckFree. A direct solution requires the credit union to develop an application that interfaces with the CheckFree platform.
* The cost to implement the PayLynx SSO solution with PSCU Financial Services is minimal, whereas the cost to implement a direct solution can be substantial not including development, software and hardware.
* The level of support that PSCU Financial Services provides for credit unions and their members on PayLynx is extraordinary:
* 24 x 7 Contact Center Support to resolve any inquiries from your members
* Regular revisions and upgrades at no cost to your credit union.
* Redundant web server, middleware software, and database servers in both of the company's locations in St. Petersburg and Phoenix.
Integrated Credit Card Data and Services PSCU Financial Services provides credit card data through three unique delivery options:
* InfoLink Plus - delivers custom-branded web pages that your members access seamlessly through your Internet banking platform.
* CardConnect - provides a browser-based front-end to the First Data Resources (FDR) cardholder accounting system for use by your member services staff.
* Data eXchange - responds to specific requests for credit card data and/or services, and delivers the response to your host Internet banking or DP platform for processing according to your own particular requirements.
InfoLink Plus includes several performance enhancements and a set of self-service features that empowers your members to manage their credit card account business and reduce the stress on your own member services' staff. These new services, like statement reprints, dispute initiation, replacement plastics, and PIN requests, can be configured to function according to credit-union specified parameters.
CardConnect responds to credit union demand for a friendlier interface to the FDR system to enable member services representatives to perform routine account maintenance functions. The company's objective was to develop a new front-end, one that is easier to operate, more intuitive for the user, and minimizes training time and reliance on staff with extensive FDR system experience.
Leveraging the technology utilized in InfoLink Plus the company developed it's own browser-based front-end to FDR to simplify common member services functions like account searches, CURewards information, credit limit adjustments, ACH on-demand payments, and cardholder information updates.
Data eXchange is a new integration technology that delivers raw data from external sources that the credit union can analyze, display, format, and store for its own particular business purposes.
No single credit card data delivery method is right for every institution. Many of our credit unions like the maintenance-free convenience of a custom-branded credit card data site (InfoLink Plus) hosted by PSCU Financial Services.
Other credit unions, however, may prefer more flexibility and control of the presentation of credit card data. Data eXchange was developed precisely for this reason to give credit unions total control over how to present and process members' credit card account data.
Data eXchange allows credit unions to better control their brand image and message to members and to also reduce the costs of training staff on other external systems. Members benefit through an improved perception of the credit union as a single access point for all their financial services.
The Business Case for Integration
Integration solutions relieve the headaches associated with deploying and maintaining multiple financial services from disparate sources, systems, and platforms. The more seamless paths you provide between your Internet banking or DP platforms and other mission critical applications (like bill payment), the greater the value and benefit to your family of users.
"PSCU Financial Services continues to build SSO integration relationships with the industry's leading Internet banking and DP system providers for both PayLynx and EasyToCUInfoLinkSM," continued Serlo. "The proliferation of our integration partnerships supports our belief that complete and seamless integration of online components is essential for driving member adoption and loyalty."
PSCU Financial Services most likely has a ready integration solution to enhance the power and usability of your Internet banking application. Contact Mike Hapner, Director of Enterprise Systems at mhapner pscufs.com or at 800-443-7728 ext. 7977 for more information.
