TMG personnel have attended CUNA’s Governmental Affairs Conference since its inception, and we’re excited to be planning another trip to our nation’s capital for this year’s conference scheduled for February 21 – 25.

If you’re planning to be there, be sure to look us up. TMG will be exhibiting at space #332 located on the main aisle.

We’d also love a chance to talk with you at the soiree we’re planning for Tuesday night, Feb. 23, from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Renaissance Hotel’s lobby bar. We’ve coined the cocktail event “Send Your Numbers Soaring” and hope to see some new faces there, as well as our existing client partners.

Joining me at the conference and Tuesday night’s event will be Chris Gunnare, TMG’s senior vice president of account management, and Aris Jerahian, our vice president of client relations. 

Stop by to discuss how TMG and your financial institution can partner for success in 2010. Hope to see you there!

Last month, PaymentsSource said micropayments (defined as transactions less than $10) are “poised for a breakthrough year.”

Citing the rise of consumer and merchant comfort with micropayments and the increasing popularity of the smart phone, the payments industry trade magazine suggests 2010 may be a banner year for these mini transactions.

What smaller card issuers may be wondering is how the rise of micropayments will impact their interchange revenue.

While major changes in interchange policies still loom on the horizon, as of today, signs point only to positive returns from an increase in micropayments. That’s because most micropayment growth comes from new transactions or as a replacement of cash.

As PaymentSource observes, there has been no movement toward developing a micropayment interchange scale by any of the major network operators.

While Visa declined to participate in the article, a Mastercard representative told PaymentsSource that merchants’ increasing acceptance of cards for smaller purchases is evidence “they see the value” in accepting micropayments.

Read the full PaymentsSource article here.

Organizing an annual fraud audit is a must for today’s financial institutions, as they are facing an ever-evolving fraud environment. Not only does an audit take into account new fraud trends, it analyzes a specific FIs unique situation – where it has been the most vulnerable in the past and where the most exposure exists for future breaches.

The new year presents the perfect opportunity for an FI to reevaluate the effectiveness of its fraud prevention tools (called Falcon Strategies within the TMG community).

In recent months, TMG has consulted several FIs and brought attention to Falcon Strategies that have gone untouched for years. While many of these strategies remained viable, they were no longer capable of providing the best possible protection for that particular FI – simply because they longer met the needs and behaviors of a changing cardholder base. 

One way to revamp your strategies is to sign up for TMG’s Fraud & Risk Analysis.

Using a custom process developed by TMG’s fraud department, our fraud experts will analyze 12 months of an FI’s fraud cases to pinpoint exactly where fraud is originating. After the analysis is complete, our fraud experts recommend and help implement new fraud strategies to minimize future risk.
 
More information is available here, as is a way to get in touch with TMG if your FI is ready to ramp up its fraud prevention in 2010.

Every year, the TMG marketing team looks forward to our annual ATIRAgift card sales contest.

Not only do we get to watch our fellow marketers in action; we witness the fruits of our labor.

Beginning each spring, we devote hours to the development of our ATIRAgift holiday sales guide. Through it, we supply our partner FIs with tips on boosting gift card sales, as well as head-turning, attention-grabbing marketing collateral designed with holiday plastic shoppers in mind.

We had outstanding results this year, as many of our clients increased their sales dramatically compared with 2008. Thanks to each of our partner FIs for your participation, and congratulations to our winners:

Most Improved - 2009 ATIRAgift Card Sales
Cornerstone Credit Union
 
Top 2009 ATIRAgift Card Sales
Group A: Tradesmen Community Credit Union
Group B: Affinity Credit Union
Group C: IH Mississippi Valley Credit Union

I recently read an article that suggested mobile banking will be adopted first by young people, second by their parents.

As the younger generation becomes comfortable managing their money and sending payments via their phones, they will expect their parents – the ones will all the money – to jump on board.

Makes sense to me. How many of us taught our parents how to set up an email account or install TiVo? How many insisted our parents get cell phones so those obligatory weekly phone calls could be free?

But as with horses and water, it’s the drinking that’s the issue. Will these parents fully engage in what they’ve been led to?

Will they truly adopt mobile banking as a new way of managing money or will they view it as an occasional way to satisfy the whims of their crazy kids?
 
Only time will tell.

I love this quote by CUNA president Dan Mica:

The task of changing financial attitudes and behavior later in life is like altering an asteroid’s course toward a collision with Earth. The earlier we apply our influence on its path, the less effort it takes to redirect it.

Mica was speaking about the importance of financial education for the very young when he made that statement. It got me to thinking about the concept of thrift and the credit union movement’s dedication to keeping its members’ spending in line with their earning.

Credit unions have the potential to become leaders in the pursuit of the next generation’s financial literacy, and several of the products we make available to credit unions are perfectly positioned to help bring thrift back en vogue. 

Cash may be king, but let’s face it, it’s not the safest tool for teaching financial education. With card products like TMG’s ATIRAreload prepaid card, credit unions provide parents with a safe, convenient and continuous instrument for teaching responsible spending. 

The card, which can be loaded by anyone – the child himself, parents, grandparents, even an employer – is designed to teach kids how to use plastic responsibly (and minus the risk of overspending).

Parents can track purchases, monitoring their child’s financial behavior for any red-flag moments that will require attention. This gives the child the necessary autonomy to make a few mistakes yet keeps the parent in the loop and ready to greet those mistakes with a conversation about how to prevent them from reoccurring.

It’s the perfect blend of high technology and good old-fashioned parental guidance, and one that every credit union should consider providing its parent members.

We’re hearing a lot of chatter about major card issuer “experimentation” these days.

As credit card companies meander a new market, unsure of what will be both profitable for the company and palatable to consumers, they are taking a trial-and-error approach to things like annual fees, rewards programs and marketing promotions.

The most recent example of this is American Express’ Zync card aimed at the 20-something market. Rolled out as a beta, the charge card is being designed in part by a test group of young adults.

This group, called the “Zync Tank,” will provide feedback on their experience with the card, ultimately helping to determine exactly what the finished Zync product will look like.

As an entirely new card market emerges from new legislation governing how issuers can do business, a dominate card product has yet to be determined. Ultimately, consumers will dictate the most popular models.

While smaller issuers likely lack the resources to run large-scale betas of their own, FIs can still take advantage of the consumer-driven product concept.

Using simple tools like surveys, blogs, Twitter and good old-fashioned conversation with cardholders, you can gather valuable insight into the emerging desires of your current and prospective cardholder base.

Whether you’re a CUSO, credit union, community bank or some other form of financial marketing professional, you’re likely asking yourself how you will improve your communications efforts in 2010.

Top on our team’s list for the new year is integration. Sounds like an overused buzz word, right? I know.

But if you can look past that, what you’re left considering is a sure-fire way to align each of your marketing tactics to support your ultimate communications goal.

By focusing on an integrated marketing effort, you avoid the temptation of one-off projects – the kind that distract you from a unified, objectives-based program.

Integration considers both internal and external audiences, current and prospective customers, consumers and industry analysts – leaving no one behind and ensuring each of these stakeholder groups is receiving the same message about your organization at as close to the same time as possible.

While seamless integration takes tremendous resources, we don’t have to aim for perfection, just a step in the right direction. For TMG, that will mean further engaging our clients, delving deeper into our objectives to more accurately assign relevant tactics and making a commitment to sound planning to better coordinate our communications.

It’s going to be a great year!

Financial institution balance sheets are much more complex today than they were even ten years ago. And never has the existence of a sound Asset Liability Committee (ALCO) been more important.

Below are three components to building a sound ALCO.

Knowledgeable Members

Unless ALCO members work inside the FI, they are at a major disadvantage when it comes to knowing the business of finance. Therefore, the institution’s CEO, CFO and at least one other staff member should serve on the ALCO.

Staying on Task

Reiterate the primary focus of the ALCO – strategic balance sheet and earnings management – on a regular basis. An integral part of that will come from an understanding of key measurements the committee uses as targets.

Remaining Responsive

Becoming more comfortable and competent in the ALM process is necessary as your institution meanders a tumultuous climate toward an uncertain future. While the principles of managing assets and liabilities will remain the same, consumer behavior will fluctuate.

Your account holders make decisions based on a changing economy. And, it isn’t over yet. Cultivate a responsive environment inside the ALCO, keeping a consistent eye on the ebbs and flows so as to produce a consistent spread.

The introduction of mobile payments solutions in the U.S. has moved at a snail’s pace at best – due in large part to the fact that mobile companies, credit card issuers and financial institutions aren’t quite sure how to play together.

No one’s done it before.

But, with the introduction of a new contactless card in the U.K., we may be witnessing the development of a model partnership between a card issuer and mobile network operator – one that serves as a door opener for similar deals in the U.S.

The cobranded contactless credit card is a product of the newly formed relationship between British issuer Barclaycard and mobile-network operator Orange U.K.

In an interview with PaymentsSource, a Mercator Advisory Group analyst called the card’s rollout a “first step toward finding a solution to the business-model question that has long plagued the near-field communication (NFC) mobile payments.”

Throw in the fact that Mastercard also has a hand in the product (the card relies on the issuer’s PayPass application), and a U.S. look-alike product seems pretty feasible.

Stay tuned… it’s going to be a great story to watch unfold.