Key Dates

May 25
Scheduled downtime (10-15 min.) for authorization system upgrade at 10:00 am CST.

June 6
Scheduled downtime (1 hour) for OneBridge Navigator upgrade at 6:00 pm CST (authorizations will not be impacted).

June 15
Visa Join the Journey TORINO 2006 Olympic Winter Games electronic promotional materials to be delivered.

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 Client Corner

Congratulations to JM Associates Federal Credit Union in Florida for two Diamond Award 2005 recognitions at the CUNA national marketing conference. The Diamond Award recognizes credit unions on "the cutting edge of marketing."

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Quick Fact
The number of credit and debit cards-in-force in the USA grew by 64.6 million over the past 12 months, surpassing the 900 million card mark in the first quarter.

- cardweb.com

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OneBridge People News
OneBridge welcomes Debbie Sargeant as our new Quality Analyst! Debbie joins us with over 12 years of experience in software testing. She will be reporting to Aleta Jeffress, VP software development.
 

OneBridge is pleased to present...

Early this year, OneBridge launched an effort to deliver a rewards loyalty program that would meet the needs of our clients and their cardholders. We researched the current rewards landscape to gain competitive knowledge, as well as conducted a focus group to uncover client expectations of a rewards program. With this information in mind, we began our search for a partner that could help us build our solution.

After evaluating potential partners, we have partnered with RewardsNOW, a New Hampshire company specializing in cardholder loyalty programs. We have been working with RewardsNOW to develop a competitive, turnkey solution that will help our clients maximize the value of their programs.

We are thrilled to announce that Point2Point Rewards, the new OneBridge rewards solution, is in the final stages of development and is scheduled to go live in mid-June.

More information about Point2Point Rewards will be coming very soon. Stay tuned!

June Upgrade Includes Enhancement to Select Card Screen
OneBridge Navigator will be upgraded on Monday, June 5 at 6:00 pm CST. Navigator is scheduled to be down for approximately one hour. This upgrade is not anticipated to impact the authorization system.

One exciting enhancement that will be made with this upgrade includes a modification to the Select Card screen. This screen will be updated so that when a search is completed, the returned information will include a new field indicating whether the card is on the Exception File. A "Yes" or "No" will be marked in the new "On Exception File" column.

This enhancement was made in response to a client request.

17th Annual Card Forum and Expo Highlights Broad Opportunities for Cards

The 17th Annual Card Forum and Expo hosted by SourceMedia (previously Thomson Media) was held May 4-6 at the Omni Orlando Resort and Hotel in Championsgate, Florida. OneBridge Vice President of Network Relations Janet Simpson and Marketing Associate Leslie Kern (pictured left) represented OneBridge at the event.

"Participating in the Card Forum & Expo gave us an opportunity to interact with institutions and other card-related companies of all different sizes from around the world," said Janet Simpson. "Being a part of something like that helps us to stay on top of the industry as well as to keep our clients' programs on the forefront."

One of the key take-aways from this year's conference was that the payment card industry is at a crossroads. Recent court decisions, new technologies, the possible maturation of the credit card market, and regulatory changes have come together to challenge our current business models and ways of thinking about this industry. It is now up to each payment card company and financial institution to react to those challenges and to adapt their ways of doing business to thrive within new rules.

Dr. David S. Evans, in his keynote address, stressed that "payment card businesses need to monitor these challenges carefully because this is a time when the observant have great profit opportunities and the passive risk going the way of Diners Club."

Other featured topics from the conference include the current trends in cardholder rewards and loyalty programs, the status of interchange arguments between issuers and merchants, and the recent growth in prepaid programs especially for the unbanked.

OneBridge will be providing you with a more thorough summary document of the conference in June.

Turnaround Trend?
Eastern Financial Credit Union Gets Back Into Card Issuing
Four years after selling its credit card portfolio to the First National Bank of Omaha, Eastern Financial Credit Union is getting back into the card issuing business (CU Times). They will begin marketing their new cards on July 1, 2005.

"As far as we were concerned, it was a matter of having control of the underwriting on these cards," said George Lanier, senior vice president for the credit union. "We were having members who were being turned down for cards when we perhaps might not have turned them down. It hurt the overall relationship."

Eastern Financial is the first credit union to have publicly moved away from an agent card issuing relationship.

Verified by Visa Continues Steady Adoption

In the past year alone, Verified by Visa's share of e-commerce transactions has grown over 40%, and transaction volume during the first quarter of 2005 has increased more than 230% over last year.

Today, more than 360 million Visa cards are eligible for Verified by Visa, and 56,000 merchants worldwide have adopted the cardholder authentication service. "Even brick-and-mortar merchants know the importance of online shopping and how maintaining customer confidence is the key to sales," said Mike Yakel, Vice President of Emerging Product Management, Visa USA. "Verified by Visa provides an added layer of security protecting both the Internet merchant and consumers."

As of April 2005:

  • Verified by Visa transaction volume has increased more than 300 percent compared to same quarter a year ago.
  • For participating Verified by Visa merchants, more than $3 of every $10 of eCommerce processed by Visa comes from Verified by Visa authenticated transactions.
  • The average Verified by Visa transaction is now $173, an increase of 4% from last year.
  • The value of the average Verified by Visa transaction is more than triple the $56 average size of a Visa transaction.

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.