JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Has Fidelity National Information Systems begun to turn a corner when it comes to credit union card portfolios?
FIS is the nation's largest processor of credit union card transactions and, as the largest, it has often been on the losing side of the trend of portfolio sales and processing switches that has gone over the last few years, acknowledged Ron Kishen, senior vice president with FIS.
"In a sense this is only natural," Kishen said. "When you're the biggest, you're the guy with the target on his back. People come by to shoot fish in your barrel because yours has the most fish in it."
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The merger of then card processor Certegy into FIS did little in the near term to correct or defend against that natural trend, Kishen explained, as the merger and related issues helped divert FIS away from card management. But the recent news that a $271 million credit union has signed up with FIS, and that FIS has launched a new service to help CUs better manage their portfolios will help to reinvigorate the card processor, Kishen said.
The new CU is the MaPS (Marion and Polk Schools) Credit Union, headquartered in Salem, Oregon. In addition to signing on with FIS for credit and debit processing, the credit union also signed on to use the new Portfolio Management Analysis service, which will help MaPS manage its portfolio more profitably and efficiently.
Portfolio Management Analysis is a fee-based service that will bring a higher level of analytics, the same sorts of analytics that much larger card issuers use to perform even account level analysis of card portfolios, to credit unions as well.
Kishen described the new PMA program as the next set of tools after a credit union has done the sorts of obvious things like working to improve the activation rates for its cards or reviewing and raising spending limits. He said the program was meant to work in concert with similar efforts sponsored by Card Services for Credit Unions, the association of credit unions that processes with FIS.
For example, CSCU offers its members a program called the Virtual Card Consultant, a way of helping more easily analyze and manage their card portfolio data and Kishen said the new program would work in concert with the VCC and not duplicate it.
"We made the strategic decision to enhance and grow our credit card portfolio," said Dan Penn, president of MaPS Credit Union. "Our existing internal credit card platform, which was tied to our core platform, did not give us the flexibility we needed to reach our growth goals."
Kishen also took care not to give the MPA program too much emphasis, arguing that it was the total FIS card program, including the rewards offerings, that helped win the contract over PSCU Financial Services who had also been bidding on it.
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