With the dust settling a bit from CSCU’s Solutions Conference 2016, several overarching themes were front and center throughout the conference. However, none were in the spotlight as much as the presentations and dialog regarding the need for credit unions to up their games when it comes to creating and deploying digital payments strategies.
During a key breakout session jointly hosted by CSCU’s Tom Davis, Senior VP Finance and Technology and Lou Grilli, Director of Payments Strategy, the main message for credit unions was to think of credit cards in terms of “top of phone” rather than the traditional “top of wallet.” Today, credit union members are already paying for goods and services using digital and mobile wallets. If a credit union’s card is not enabled in these wallets, then members are using some other financial institution’s card. Grilli cites industry statistics to prove the magnitude of the opportunity including the fact that 3.5 percent of eligible purchase transactions are already made using Apple Pay. More than 70 financial institutions in the U.S. now support Samsung Pay with that number increasing almost daily. And, there are currently 11 million Visa Checkout users with 1.5 million new Android devices added each month.