Incentives Help Drive Debit Card Awareness & Use

An ongoing campaign to boost debit card use among cardholders of PSCU Financial Services' credit-union members is meeting with growing success, Merry Pateuk, a PSCU spokesperson, tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister publication. Debit card transactions collected by PSCU, a St. Petersburg, Fla.-based credit-union service organization, topped 500 million last year, 19% more than in 2006, Pateuk says. First Data Corp. processes PSCU's debit card transactions. PSCU's CURewards spring and fall promotions helped boost the growth in debit card use, Pateuk says "We want to bring debit to the top of the wallet over cash and credit," she says. Participating credit unions offer incentives, such as a $10 prepaid gas card, to cardholders who use their debit cards to initiate 15 transactions per month. Meanwhile, Y-12 Federal Credit Union in Oak Ridge, Tenn., reported that offering gifts as incentives led to an increase in debit card usage for the year ended March 31. The credit union also boosted the percentage of debit card accounts that are active to 74% in March from 60% in March 2007, John Stegner, Y-12 vice president and chief financial officer, said in a statement. "In the fall campaign, we had more than 450 accounts go from completely inactive to an average of 24 transactions a month," he said. "We have found that once cardholders make their debit card their primary choice, activity and transaction volumes remain high."