Key Dates

March 23
Scheduled downtime for system upgrade around 10:00 AM (EST) and at 7:00 PM (EST)

April 1
Update disclosure with new exchange rate information for international transactions

April 1
Kick-off for Visa Spend Small, Win Big promotion

April 2
Interchange rates scheduled to be updated (based on information provided by Visa earlier this quarter)

April 3
Daylight Saving Time goes into effect - OneBridge will be on the same time as the Central Time Zone

April 16-19
OneBridge exhibits at 2005 Open Solutions Client Conference in San Diego. Please stop by our booth!


________



Client Corner

Congratulations to First Internet Bank of Indiana who celebrated their 6-year anniversary on February 26!


________



Quick Fact

By the end of 2004, Americans carried 657 million credit cards and 228 million debit cards in their wallets. That's 885 million cards!

Dear Client,

As we welcome the start of spring, we thought it would be the perfect time to launch the new OneBridge client newsletter - Touchpoints. The blue "swipe" above our name on the OneBridge logo has four dots on the right side of the arch. At OneBridge, these four dots are called "touchpoints", and they represent the many ways we connect with our customers and, in turn, help them connect with their cardholders.

Touchpoints, our newsletter, is designed to be a valuable new avenue of communication with you. It is scheduled to be delivered via email every month and will convey important card-industry, network, and OneBridge information. The newsletter will not be a replacement for our other communications; rather it will be a place where we can summarize key information that will be of interest to you.

We hope you enjoy this new monthly connection and look forward to continuing our relationship with you as your card processing partner.

Best Regards,

Kim Graham Lee
OneBridge President

OneBridge To Implement April 2005 Release

The OneBridge system update is scheduled for March 23, 2005. Both Visa spring mandate changes and OneBridge enhancements will be implemented. The update will be completed in two phases.

  1. Between 10 am and 10:30 AM (EST), there will be a five-minute period of downtime to the authorization system. Visa will stand in on your behalf during this time.
  2. At 7 PM (EST), there is an anticipated one-hour downtime. Authorizations will not be impacted, but OneBridge Navigator will be unavailable.

More specific information about the update is included in the release notes and Visa mandate document, which you received on March 16.

OneBridge Enhances Risk Management Services

OneBridge introduced enhanced versions of lost/stolen card reporting and card activation on September 1, 2004. These enhanced services were designed to strengthen an institution's risk management efforts, while also helping to improve cardholder experience. The enhanced lost/stolen card reporting service allows a cardholder to report a card lost or stolen without knowing the card number. This not only makes it easier for a cardholder to report the card, but it also can decrease the amount of time it takes to block the card. The enhanced card activation service helps to ensure that new cards are activated by the actual cardholder by requiring activation of new cards from the cardholder's primary phone number.

Idaho Central Credit Union in Pocatello, ID has been up and running with the new services since February 6, 2005. "We are especially pleased with the new lost/stolen card reporting," said Brenda Worrell, vice president of operations at Idaho Central. "Our old process for blocking cards required a lot of manual work on the part of our cardholders and our staff. With this new system, the cardholders can do it all themselves. It has definitely increased the level of service we can provide to our members."

Three OneBridge clients have gone live with these enhanced services so far, and three more are scheduled to be implemented within the next few weeks. As a special offer to our existing clients, we are providing the first six months of usage of each of these new services at the same per call fee as our current services. For more information about this offer please contact OneBridge Client Service at 800.322.4035 or via email at clientservice@onebridge.com.

New Visa Service Helps Issuers with Stop Payment Requests

Have you ever cancelled a gym membership or Internet subscription service that you paid for automatically, and even when you cancelled it, the automatic payment didn't stop? If so, you are among many who have had a similar experience. In order to assist issuers in handling cardholders' stop payment requests on these payments that never actually stopped, Visa has introduced Preauthorized Payment Cancellation Service (PPCS). PPCS helps issuers stop preauthorized payments from being authorized, and cleared and settled when a cardholder has requested a stop payment order under Regulation E of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. Issuers inform acquirers and their merchants of the stop payment through the authorization response, and Visa declines or returns the transaction to the acquirer on behalf of the issuer. PPCS can only be applied to future payments, meaning that one payment to the merchant has to have been made from the account before the cancellation service can be applied.

PPCS is currently available to all OneBridge clients. More detailed information about this convenient new service will be provided to you shortly. 

Client Tour 2005 In Full-Swing

So far this year, OneBridge representatives have covered the country visiting client institutions for full-day partner reviews. The picture on the right shows OneBridge President Kim Graham Lee (far right) with Tom Clancy, vice president of operations and Colleen Clifford, electronic services manager at Central One Federal Credit Union in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. During the reviews it is OneBridge's goal to gather feedback from clients regarding their partnership and to identify opportunities to strengthen the relationship.

"We know how important these visits are for both OneBridge and our clients. It is so valuable to have the opportunity to hear directly from the institutions in a face-to-face setting about their goals," said Susie Golden-Bishop, OneBridge Client Service Representative. "Then, we can work together to figure out how OneBridge can best support them to achieve those goals."

OneBridge plans to meet with every institution by the end of summer 2005. The next round of visits is scheduled to kick-off on April 5.

Thank you to those institutions that we have met with so far, and we are very much looking forward to seeing our clients who we haven't yet visited!

Industry Update
Below are interesting stories about the card industry that have made headlines over the last few weeks. Links to the full articles are included below.