DALLAS — TNB Card Services, the card portfolio purchasing and processing arm of credit union-owned Town North Bank has renovated its card rewards program to make it more accessible and better known to credit unions.
TNB felt that it had made a number of different innovations to its card rewards program over the years that were not getting sufficient attention, explained Dusty Bowers, sales manager for the card processing firm. In addition, the program's previous name, Member Miles, didn't really draw attention to the fact that TNB had made more than travel rewards available.
"Credit unions have always been able to rebrand Member Miles to make it their own," explained Jan Daily, senior vice president for TNB. "But Member Miles was our name for the program and it didn't really convey everything we had to offer credit unions."
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The new program, dubbed Rewards2U, can be customized so credit union clients can rename and brand it as their own and will offer a broad array of merchandise and services as rewards, just as they could before, Daily and Bowers said. But now the new name will allow the card processor to put more emphasis on the rewards package and to highlight elements it has long had, but TNB has not really played up.
"Rewards have become the price of entry for card programs," Bowers said. "With the average U.S. household participating in 12 loyalty programs, credit unions can no longer ignore the importance of offering rewards."
The new rewards program will allow participating credit unions to offer rewards on both credit and debit cards as well as other CU products and services, TNB explained.
"We developed Rewards2U to drive members to use their cards and other credit union products more often," Bowers said. "A loyalty program not only strengthens members' ties to the credit union, but also drives revenue through increased usage. Rewards2U's flexibility and easy implementation will enable
credit unions to boost the performance of their credit and debit cards and entire product portfolio."
Daily explained that the company had been searching for a way to both help credit unions have a rewards program, but also to make it more personal and unique to that credit union so that it could stand out from other programs.
The market for rewards has gotten to the point where credit unions have to have a rewards program to compete but simply having a rewards program is not enough, they explained, adding that Rewards2You is a way for CUs to compete in the changing rewards marketplace.
One thing TNB made sure to add to the rewards mix this time were additional rewards that cost fewer points and are geared more to a younger cardholder.
"Credit unions are challenged in trying to attract a younger demographic and those folks are just not going to want to wait around to earn 35,000 or 40,000 points for an airline ticket," Bowers said.
Instead the new program will offer rewards like ring tones for cell phones and other tech-based rewards that might appeal to the younger demographic and not cost as many points, he explained.
Currently about 20% of the over 400 credit unions that process their cards with TNB use the Member Miles rewards program, the executives said.
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