Security Service Federal Credit Union Is First To Deploy MasterCard's New Debit Product The $5.2 billion Security Service Federal Credit Union in San Antonio is the first CU to roll out a MasterCard tool to help MasterCard debit cardholders track their d

The $5.2 billion Security Service Federal Credit Union in San Antonio is the first CU to roll out a MasterCard tool to help MasterCard debit cardholders track their debit card spending online.MasterCard has dubbed its new tool the “MasterCard Money Manager,” and it’s meant to provide MasterCard debit cardholders with a way to quickly and efficiently monitor their debit card spending and that of their households.“MasterCard Money Manager provides greater control to MasterCard cardholders at a time when consumers are seeking ways to better manage spending,” MasterCard said. “According to MasterCard research, 43% of consumers prefer debit to other payment methods because of its ability to provide greater financial control and help them spend responsibly.”“MasterCard Money Manager provides our members with a simple and convenient way to create a budget and then track how and where they are spending,” said Keith Sultemeier, executive vice president and chief financial officer at Security Service. “Especially in today’s economic environment and as we approach the start of the holiday shopping season, we’re excited to be able to offer our members more control and greater financial management capabilities simply by using their debit card.”MasterCard Money Manager simplifies record keeping and eliminates the data entry that most budgeting programs require. Users can track household spending on multiple cards daily, monthly or over time and have the ability to sort transactions by date, merchant category, merchant location, card number and name.“As consumers increasingly seek greater control and visibility into their spending, MasterCard Money Manager provides an intuitive and simple to use way to manage and assess an individual or household budget,” said Patricia Preston, senior vice president, U.S. debit product management and development at MasterCard Worldwide. “The financial management tool is the latest MasterCard innovation designed to help financial institutions offer superior products that add value and make life easier for their customers.”Preston said the new product would be housed on MasterCard servers, but Security Service members would access it through a Web page that was clearly branded as the credit union’s. She also said the product was designed to not compete with the credit union’s own online banking products because it would offer members a more enhanced and useful tool that merely a payments log.“I think of a payments log as something vertical,” Preston said, “it just keeps track of transactions and my balances. Our tool is horizontal, it lets me see, for example, how much money I have spent in a given month on gas or eating out or coffee or whatever.”Preston said the money management tool is more akin to one of the computer software packages that help consumers track their spending. In addition, she said, the tool would work across accounts so that all the members of a household could easily track their spending as a household.John Worthington, senior vice president for Security Service said the credit union would roll out the new product first to its employees and then to members.“It’s too early to get member reaction to it because we really haven’t made it available yet to everyone,” Worthington said, adding that the CU expected to have it up and running for all its debit cardholders by the end of this year.Worthington explained that the credit union had a long relationship with MasterCard and had been involved in the testing and introduction of other of the card brand’s innovations, though the credit union looked closely at a new technology before it jumped in.“We like to be on the leading edge of technology,” he said, chuckling, “but we prefer to leave the bleeding [from a new technical innovation] to someone else.”–[email protected]