“If you don’t live in this environment, you may not understand.”

The words are those of Cami Crouchet, Chief Operating Officer of New Orleans Firemen’s Federal Credit Union (NOFFCU), based in Metairie, La., located seven and a half miles from New Orleans’ city hall, and at the center of the disastrous August 2005 Hurricane Katrina. More than 1,800 people lost their lives, the fifth deadliest in the history of the United States. In its wake, it left at least one credit union determined that on behalf of its members it must be ready next time. 

“Our story revolves around Hurricane Katrina,” says Crouchet. “Everything we have done for the last four to five years is to prepare for another disaster.”

Part of its solution was to contract with CO-OP Member Center, based in Fort Worth, Texas, a fully-owned subsidiary of CO-OP Financial Services. In late 2007, NOFFCU simultaneously started using the center’s 24×7 LoanLink and Member Services.

In August 2005, NOFFCU knew Hurricane Katrina was coming, and its employees stayed on the job until the last minute, making sure that its members could attend to their financial affairs before evacuating. This, says Crouchet, was always part of their business model. But, even well after most other local businesses, the credit union had to close its doors.   

“We didn’t have a plan for when our employees couldn’t get back to the main office, and our employees scattered as far away as Colorado,” says Crouchet. “We could reach all of our employees, but we did not have a call center solution where members could get in touch with us.”

NOFFCU’s make-shift solution was to start posting updates on its Web site. In the great credit union tradition of people helping people, NOFFCU eventually received call center assistance from Member Source Credit Union of Houston, Texas, where most evacuees temporarily settled.

“We had our main number transferred to that Houston call center and we had enough employees report so that we could run it,” says Crouchet. “But it was not an optimal solution. Our employees had to leave their families. Some had lost their homes. We just knew we didn’t want to ever go through this again.”

So, NOFFCU went looking for 24×7 loan and call center support. 

“The CO-OP Member Center was perfect for us,” says Crouchet. “Now, should we need to evacuate, we can simply roll over the phones to our service provider. We do not even have to wait until the last minute, because we know we have someone covering for us.”

The credit union has derived a number of benefits from using CO-OP Member Center. Yet, Crouchet still returns to the peace of mind she has in terms of disaster preparedness. And, that peace of mind has been verified by experience. In her words, “there’s something about Labor Day,” because in August 2008 the New Orleans area was threatened again with disaster – this time by the approach of Hurricane Gustav. 

Though it “only” turned out to be the second most destructive storm of the 2008 hurricane season, NOFFCU went into contingency planning mode, staying in contact with the CO-OP Member Center so that representatives could provide status updates to members.  

 “A lot of our members evacuated the area as a precaution, and we noticed a strong spike in the number of calls to our after-hours call center – people were just calling in, testing the waters,” says Crouchet.  “As a result, they felt like they could get in touch with us no matter what, that they had access to their money and that their financial affairs were in order.

 “We are not the biggest financial institution in the world and we don’t have branches on every corner, but our members felt connected to us,” says Crouchet. “We got a lot of good compliments after Gustav. Our members thought, ‘This credit union has its act together. We don’t have to close our accounts and go to a bank or an institution with a nationwide presence.’ Our credit union can’t compete with a nationwide institution by ourselves, but with CO-OP Member Center we can.”

In fact, credit unions often simply do not take advantage of their credit/debit portfolios as revenue streams. Here are some steps you can take that will make a meaningful difference to your bottom line in a post-Durbin environment:

New Account Acquisition. Big banks are raising interest rates and annual fees as well as reducing reward program earnings and redemptions for all customers, not just those that exhibit bad behavior. The banks have disenfranchised many of their best customers and have spurred consumer interest in seeking the best card deals. These consumers are seeking more favorable terms in keeping with their on-time payment records, good credit ratings and low risk status. This should be a boon for credit union credit card programs since they are already fairly priced and offer competitive reward programs. The time is optimum for growing credit card bases with low-risk cardholders.

Manage Existing Card Base. For both debit and credit card holders, credit unions can substantially increase revenue and keep costs down at the same time by promoting card activation and increasing the number of transactions per card. While credit card activation is a big issue, debit cards provide a real opportunity for credit unions to increase non-interest income by effectively targeting members to drive the usage behavior they want, such as increased signature debit transactions. With card usage analytics tools, credit unions can collect portfolio data that will enable this targeted marketing. One compelling case study is Signal Financial FCU, which experienced an 80% increase in transaction volume, a 73% increase in spending and a 68% increase in interchange income after implementing analytics tools.

Manage Risk. Fraud continues to take a bite out of card program profits. Credit unions should review processing configurations to take advantage of all the fraud fighting tools available. Other operational processes should also be reviewed to plug any potential opportunities to circumvent security procedures. Credit unions should review procedures related to card blocks, card issuance, PIN change, change of address and card reorders to make sure the appropriate member authentication occurs for these requests. These tools allow credit unions to crack down on chargeback fraud and family/friendly fraud, particularly small ticket disputes that credit unions take directly to general ledger accounts.

Select The Right Network Partnerships. The interchange earned on PIN debit transactions can vary by network. Credit unions should rationalize participation in PIN debit networks to maximize interchange and eliminate network redundancies. ATM Networks vary greatly in terms of geographic coverage, surcharge-free access and deposit-taking capabilities, so credit unions should also rationalize participation in these networks to eliminate redundancies and associated costs.

Manage Share Draft Pricing Strategies. Because revenues from share draft accounts represent about 60% of non-interest income for credit unions, preservation of these account relationships is paramount in retaining these income streams. In fact, free checking is becoming a distinct competitive advantage, one credit unions should sustain in spite of smaller margins.

Various pricing strategies can be used to modify member behavior to increase transaction volume and drive members to the revenue-generating access vehicles. When a member writes a check, this generates an expense. When a member uses a debit card, this creates revenue. Be sure the share account pricing strategies provide the right incentives to promote card usage over check writing. Finding ways to encourage use of electronic channels will also reduce overall share draft costs. It’s more cost effective to offer members account access and transaction capabilities through electronic channels like home banking and voice response units (VRU).

Solidify The Share Draft Relationship. Cross-selling other share draft features can promote more card usage. Bill pay is a sticky feature that makes members reluctant to change relationships. Adding mobile access and promoting rewards for multiple credit union products also solidifies the relationship to keep card usage on the credit union card products. Selecting a loyalty program that allows the credit union to offer reward points for multiple services or relationships also creates “sticky” members.

With the recent legislative activity concerning interchange, it’s easy to become confused by questions of “What’s next?” We urge you to stay the course.

Adopting the measures described here, credit unions can make sure their credit and debit programs are operating efficiently and card revenues are optimized – now and in the future.

This is truly a setback for credit union members, as the legislation empowers merchants to place multiple restrictions on acceptance of cards. At the same time there is no promise on the part of merchants to pass their savings onto consumers. An unintended consequence may be that credit unions will need to assess fees on debit card transactions in order to cover their costs.

The latter option is definitely not good for either the member or the credit union, which places the interests of their members above all else. The “post-Durbin world” ushers in an era of uncertainty for card issuers. Still, there are at least two aspects of interchange that remain within the control of credit unions to protect their institutions and continue to provide outstanding service to members.

The first can be termed “performance,” which calls for credit unions to do some thorough portfolio analysis work to find pockets of opportunity for maximizing interchange revenue.

Credit unions can increase revenue and keep costs down by promoting card activation and increasing the number of transactions per card. They can focus on debit cards, in particular, which provide a growing stream of noninterest income. Strategies for maximizing noninterest income include effectively targeting members to drive usage behavior, such as increased signature debit transactions or increased usage at merchant categories that deliver higher rates of interchange. With card usage analytics tools, credit unions can dig into portfolio data that will enable this targeted marketing.

For instance, Genisys Credit Union, Auburn Hills, Mich., started using the CO-OP Revelation portfolio analysis tool last year to monitor its members’ card usage trends. Their stated goal was to identify low card usage members with one to five signature transactions per month. Genisys identified 11,145 members when the credit union ran its low card usage query. For its first targeted marketing campaign, Genisys sent a mailing to these members. Genisys’ debit cards are tied to a rewards loyalty program, so the mailing touted the benefits of using the card as a signature transaction, as well as popular rewards for which the resulting points could be redeemed.

Post-mailing, Genisys saw an increase of 66.5% in signature debit usage. Among this group, the purchase amount increased by 44%. The credit union also noted that the average number of monthly transactions per card user grew by 134%, from 2.6 transactions per card per month to 6.1 transactions per card per month.

To top it all, their signature debit interchange revenue increased by 47%.

The second aspect of interchange within a credit union’s control is “profitability,” which speaks to the need to evaluate the number and relevance of their various point of sale networks, so that the credit union (not the merchant) retains control of how PIN transactions route.

In the past, many credit unions had to belong to multiple regional networks to ensure cardholders had full accessibility to their funds. Today, consolidation of networks has provided credit unions the opportunity to downsize their number of partnerships and retain the needed access. Many once-regional networks have become national in scope. Understanding which networks can deliver the geographic reach and value-added services credit union members need is one of the key components to capturing financial efficiencies.

Most credit unions can succeed by choosing one PIN POS network, a signature POS network, a national/regional network, an international network and a value-added network offering surcharge free and deposit sharing access, such as CO-OP Network. Some networks (again, such as CO-OP) play multiple roles, which is why this evaluation is so important.

A credit union should choose a PIN POS network partner that maximizes its net interchange revenue – “net” meaning interchange minus switch fees. A key consideration in the PIN POS arena is that the merchant, as the acquirer of the transaction, will choose to priority-route a transaction to the network that will yield them the lowest interchange expense. We recommend that card issuers minimize the number of POS networks with which they partner. The more networks you have on your card, the greater the opportunity for the merchant to dictate the network route of the transaction, which could have a negative impact on the amount of interchange a credit union can earn on that transaction.

More than four decades after POS interchange pricing was established, the system has never been more uncertain and perhaps more unfavorable to card issuers, especially credit unions. Yet, the way forward can still be clear by focusing on the basics of performance and profitability.

It is fitting then that we will be presenting the very first CO-OP THINK Prize finalists at THINK 11. It is our intention to excite, energize and inspire new ways of thinking, because it was this kind of pioneering spirit that prompted 32 credit unions to cooperate, share and create CO-OP Network back in 1981. In honor of their creativity and cooperation, we are introducing the first THINK Prize on the 30-year anniversary of their brilliant idea…if we do say so ourselves! What better way to celebrate than to create an opportunity for you to develop a shareable, movement-changing idea that can help make credit unions more nimble, progressive, innovative and smart. Of course, a $10,000 grand prize to move the idea along doesn’t hurt either.

We want to you be part of the selection process. More than that, we want to hear your ideas! Call for entry forms and submission guidelines for the CO-OP THINK Prize are now available at www.co-opthink.org.

Here’s a bit more information about how to participate:

The competition will proceed in three rounds, with Oct. 15, 2010, as the deadline for round one. Entrants are asked to complete a simple questionnaire that serves as a program proposal, establishing the specific idea and its merits to the industry.

Round one entries judged to be among the best will be invited to participate in a second round, in which remaining entrants will be asked to develop a business plan for the idea. The second round deadline is Dec. 31, 2010. The three finalists will be named around Jan. 31, 2011, and they will then work with a video production team to showcase the idea. The winner will be determined by THINK 11 conference attendees, online viewers and a panel of experts from the Filene Research Institute and CO-OP.

So what else is there to THINK about? Go to www.co-opthink.org and apply now!

With interchange income being about 18 to 19 percent of a credit union’s non-interest income, understanding the most suitable network partnerships for a credit union’s portfolio is imperative. In the past, many credit unions had to belong to multiple networks to ensure cardholders had full accessibility to their funds. In today’s EFT landscape, consolidation of EFT networks has provided credit unions the opportunity to “downsize” their number of partnerships and retain the needed access. In the evolution of the EFT environment, many once-regional networks have become national in scope. Understanding which networks can deliver the geographic reach and value-added services your members need is one of the key components to capturing financial efficiencies. Every credit union has a unique architecture. Membership demographics, geographical reach and platform configurations differ from one institution to another. It would be foolish to assume one business model would fit all credit unions needs. Each credit union should evaluate their structure. Understand what networks you participate in today, analyze your member demographics, service and product requirements as well as platform and processing configurations. Once you have gathered the data, you can then embark on a business plan to streamline your partnerships and maximize your income while controlling expense. You’ll want to choose those networks that charge you the least amount per transaction while yielding the best interchange rates.

As a general rule, I propose most institutions can succeed by choosing one PIN point-of-sale (POS) network, a signature POS network, a national/regional network, an international network and a value-added network offering surcharge free and deposit sharing access, such as CO-OP Network. Some networks play multiple roles, which is why this evaluation is so important.

It is important to choose a PIN POS network partner that maximizes your net interchange revenue – “net” meaning interchange minus switch fees. A key consideration in the PIN POS arena is that the merchant, as the acquirer of the transaction, will choose to priority-route a transaction to the network that will yield them the lowest interchange expense. As I mentioned earlier, my recommendation for issuers is to participate with one POS network partner. If you currently utilize two or more POS networks for your card program, more often than not you allow the merchant to choose the routing path between those networks. The fact remains that the more networks you have on your card, the greater the opportunity for the merchant to dictate the network route of the transaction, which will have a negative impact on the amount of interchange your credit union could earn on that transaction. Because the merchant will route the transaction through the least expensive network, your credit union will earn less than it might have otherwise.

While interchange and switch fees are important components for evaluation, they are not the only areas that credit unions should be analyzing for efficiencies. If you have an internal fee structure, ensure that these fees do not penalize your members for the institution’s cheapest transaction route.  For example, if you charge an internal fee through your data processing system to your members for using a foreign ATM, consider not charging a fee for CO-OP Network transactions. Next to your “on us” activity – your members at your own credit union’s ATM – the CO-OP Network access may be the least expensive transaction to your institution. Promote cash back at the PIN POS, and also consider not charging an internal fee for these transactions. Your institution earns interchange on the purchase amount as well as the cash back amount, which is certainly more profitable than paying the interchange and switch fees for a standard ATM withdrawal. When promoting cash back at the PIN POS, ensure the message is targeted and concise so you are influencing the desired behavior change. The intent is to change ATM withdrawal activity to PIN POS behavior as opposed to pulling traffic from the signature POS route. By using CO-OP Revelation, credit unions can identify members that are making withdrawals at bank locations and have a targeted message to these members to promote the cash back at PIN POS.

Next, evaluate your ATM channel. You may have high volume deposit ATMs that would be much more efficient and cost effective as a check image ATM as opposed to an envelope depositor. Deposits are most often the most expensive transactions because they must be retrieved from the ATM, often times processed by hand and sent out for collection. Check imaging technology can significantly reduce these operating costs. Evaluate your ATM fleet to determine your net financial impact. Take into account net interchange by device, facilities costs, operational costs and transaction volume to determine the most effective and financially efficient deployment strategies. Ensure that your terminals are set up correctly to earn the correct interchange. For example, many networks have “on-premise” versus “off-premise” categories. Off-premise devices earn a heightened interchange rate as costs to maintain an off-premise device are typically higher. An off-premise ATM is a device that is placed more than 500 feet away from a branch.

Finally, manage vendor contracts. Understand contract terms, and clauses. Understand your vendor invoices and audit those invoices on a monthly basis. Analyze processing fees and review configurations to validate that your current structure brings the most value and processing efficiencies to your current configuration.

And, of course, call me or any of our National Relationship Managers at CO-OP, your strategic partners in helping you maximize your financial efficiencies.

We’re past Memorial Day – summer’s here and the time is right for newly-minted high school and college grads across the nation to start spreading their financial wings.

Credit union professionals are dedicated to uplifting the financial well being of their members. You may find yourselves having to pay particular attention to your younger members at this time of year. Or put another way, you have a wonderful opportunity to add new members from this legend of people launching careers and assuming independent financial responsibility for the first time.

Hey, you may even have grads in your own family to counsel! What can we tell them? Well, the issues can be very basic – like how to prepare a budget. I recently found some helpful tips from the non-profit InCharge Education Foundation.

Or how about paying off a student loan? A recent survey by Matthew Greenwald Associates found that because of the burden of student loans, 44 percent said they delayed buying a house, 28 percent postponed having children, 27 percent skipped medical or dental procedures, and 32 percent said their loans forced them to move back into their parents’ home or live there longer than they expected. CBS News.com ran a story on strategies for retiring that debt.

Of course, opportunities to run up debt are only beginning for our young members, who have been waiting their whole lives to be financially independent and get their hands on debit and credit cards.  Now there are new payment access technologies like mobile banking, reloadable prepaid cards and contactless cards, as well as traditional debit and credit cards. How can they get started and make sure they don’t get into a mess? Here is some advice from Credit Cards.com.

And that magic cash dispenser known as the ATM can seem like a carefree way to get some fast cash. But as we know, there are safety tips to be observed even during a simple trip to the ATM.

Our friends at Air Force FCU have some advice on avoiding fraud and identity theft, as well as personal security at an ATM.

Naturally, we want to also tell our grads what a great option credit unions are for their primary financial institution. You know the story well – but a story from The Wall Street Journal can help bolster your case.

What has been your experience in providing financial advice to your young members? What did you tell them? Please let me know.

$30 x the number of debit cards you issue

So, if there are 10,000 active debit cards out there with your credit union’s name on them, you will lose somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 in interchange income each year if the Durbin amendment isn’t stricken from this bill.

Mad yet?

We at CO-OP certainly are. In fact, we’ve pledged $75,000 to CUNA to help them mount one of the biggest grassroots efforts since The Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998, or H.R. 1151.

Remember that?

That bill could have paralyzed credit unions, and the Durbin amendment has the potential to do some major harm, too. It won’t just hurt your credit union, though. Consumers are likely to be the biggest losers if interchange is regulated in the way that Durbin intends:

• Merchants are likely to place multiple restrictions on their acceptance of debit cards, taking away the choices that consumers currently enjoy.
• If credit unions decide to accept lower interchange rates so that their cards are accepted, many of them will need to assess fees on debit card transactions in order to cover their costs.
• Merchants have not promised to pass the savings on to consumers. They’ve actually said that they would offer other benefits “like free gift wrapping,” according to the head of the National Retail Federation.

What can you do?

1. Write a letter: CUNA–Take Action
2. Get your members to write letters:  Some credit unions have seen as many as 10 percent of their members heed their call to action.
3. Hike the Hill:  Join CUNA on June 9 in Washington, DC. See: CUNA-Hike-the-Hill

Finally, to learn more, visit the following Web sites:

Electronic Payments Coalition: EPC Facts on Interchange

CUNA: CUNA Interchange FAQs

On May 13 the “Durbin Interchange Amendment” (#3989) to S. 3217 (Restoring American Financial Stability Act) was passed by the U.S. Senate. The U.S. House of Representatives had previously passed a similar bill that does not contain an interchange amendment. The bills will go to a House/Senate conference committee to resolve differences. We hope through the conference committee process the interchange amendment can be deleted. We also hope that Rep. Barney Frank makes good on his promise to us at the CUNA Government Affairs Conference that there would not be interchange legislation this year.

Sen. Durbin’s amendment requires the Federal Reserve Board to regulate signature and PIN debit interchange for issuers and payment card networks with more than $10 billion in assets. That means most credit union cards will be unregulated. Normally we would view that as positive. In this case, however, it will likely make credit union-issued cards the most expensive cards for merchants to accept. This opens the door for merchants to exercise other provisions of the amendment to provide selective discounts, set transaction minimums and maximums, and provide discounts for other payment types. At the last minute, language was added to prohibit differentiation of discounts between issuers; however, the entire provision is unclear. Bottom line, the biggest winners will be the large merchants and the biggest losers will be consumers, many of which are your members.

We are further evaluating the amendment to assess its immediate and long-term impact. We cannot fully quantify the financial effect at this point.

At CO-OP, we will continue our efforts to support CUNA, Electronic Payments Coalition, Electronic Funds Transfer Association and other organizations in the opposition to this legislation. There is something you can do also. We encourage you to visit CUNA’s Web site at www.cuna.org and the sites of your state leagues to keep up with the issue and take the grassroots actions they recommend.

Working together, it is our goal to protect your interchange revenue stream and maintain a level playing field for credit unions in the payment card market.

We are so lucky to be part of such a collaborative industry that shares ideas and successes. I truly enjoy working for an organization that is involved with and supports credit unions. I’m always looking for ways to learn of emerging trends, improve my skills and knowledge. I’ve put together a few of the tricks I’ve picked up along the way to enhance a career in the credit union industry:

• Social networking – follow what is going on in the industry through the growing number of blogs and Web sites that provide opportunities for a free flowing exchange of ideas on our industry. Of course, Insight Vault is a favorite, but I may be a little biased! Others include www.cugrow.com and www.cuchatup.net. CO-OP is also on Twitter, so is Credit Union Times and many others. There is rich information out there; it just takes some simple investigation and online navigation.
• Network within national credit union-related associations such as CUNA and NAFCU, as well as the local chapters of your state and regional associations. Get involved!
• How often do you read our trade magazines? There is timely information and thought provoking ideas in industry-related publications such as Credit Union Journal and Credit Union Times.
• Take advantage of any training and educational opportunity your organization is offering you, whether it be in-house training, webinars or something through your state league or other institutions. It is important to always continue learning and keep your knowledge and skills up to date. There are often events that are free if your credit union has budget constraints, so always be on the lookout for those (such as CO-OP’s THINK Conference, which has been free for the past two years). I have been lucky to experience and graduate from Western CUNA Management School myself and feel it is a very worthy program.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention some of the ways you can enhance your career as it relates to job searching and interviewing within the credit union industry:

• No matter what industry or job you are searching for you always want to keep your resume current and up to date. It is also very important that on whatever Web site or social networking site where you may be sharing your knowledge, education and employment history, make sure all information there matches what is on your resume.
• When an interview is scheduled, it is important that you have done research on the company you are interviewing with and come prepared with questions regarding the position you are interviewing for and questions regarding the organization.
• Use social networking sites to keep up on job opportunities. This is a good way to brand yourself and network with other industry-related professionals. You may never know what opportunities arise. Some of the sites CO-OP uses for recruiting include LinkedIn, Twitter and, occasionally, Facebook.  LinkedIn is often used to post positions on their board and various industry-related groups can also be found there, such as Credit Union Network and Credit Union Professionals Network.
• Of course, do not neglect your own professional discipline and participate in the associations, events and resources available through your professional societies.

By following these tips, you can help all of us take the credit union movement into a healthy future, and you can continue to thrive in this wonderful industry.

“Usage Analytics” is a rather technical term that simply means knowing how your members currently use their cards. For years, broad statistics like “60 percent of our checking account holders have cards and 50 percent use them” was about as far down as we were able to drill. We knew that there were lots of accounts still without cards and those that had them had a high percentage of people that were not using them. The benefits of increasing card activation and use and the associated income gains created by that usage demanded some action to motivate a change. The Usage Analytics program from CO-OP Financial Services is called CO-OP Revelation and it’s a tool the credit union can use to motivate change in cardholder behavior.

A card transaction generates a lot of information in addition to the transfer of funds messages. In the fraction of a second it takes to verify the card and transaction, we learn how much money is spent, the merchant or ATM location name, the time of purchase, the day of the purchase, whether it was a cash withdraw or a direct purchase, whether it was PIN or signature validation, and the general merchant category. On an individual transaction basis, this data helps to resolve individual card-holder issues if there is a problem with a transaction. But, taking the information and analyzing it in the scale of the entire cardbase reveals a lot more.

Employing Usage Analytics, we learn about our member’s favorite merchants which in turn helps determine what premiums are most motivating, whether we are trying to promote greater card usage or the adoption of a new non-card product or service. We now know the percentage of transactions that are happening in signature debit, PIN debit and ATMs. This enables us to easily track change as we market to our members month by month. And, we can more easily compare our card performance against our peers to determine how much potential might be out there that we are missing.

CO-OP Revelation can be upgraded to become even more powerful by linking the usage data with individual cardholder records. The system allows us to define certain behavioral characteristics. For example, we can identify the behavior “low signature card use.” We discover that 20 percent of our cardbase is only using the card five times per month for signature purchase when our stats show that the average monthly use is 13 times. We can then tie the usage data to the cardholder record generating a complete list of names and contact information for the entire 20 percent that falls into that behavior category. Now we know who we need to reach and we know the behavior. With this information, we focus the message to the behavior while narrowing the number of members we need to reach with that message; a more effective campaign at a reduced cost! This is precisely what makes CO-OP Revelation Usage Analytics Plus, the enhanced version, worth the investment. More specific knowledge means a better understanding of cardholders and more intelligent and economical marketing planning and execution.

CO-OP Revelation lends itself to more than increased marketing effectiveness. Any usage behavior can be identified and tracked. Fraud trend identification and resolution has been a discovered benefit of the program and is used actively by the CO-OP Card Member Security Group and several large clients. The greatest win from gaining familiarity with the program is the uses the credit union dreams up for itself. CO-OP Revelation is a programmable tool. We provide useful outputs immediately so that you can put it to work right away but it does not stop there. CO-OP Financial Services offers the learning tools to make CO-OP Revelation an integral part of knowing your membership more deeply. As competition increases and providing the appropriate services becomes more imperative, knowing matters.