Students want to be able to use their cards worldwide. With study abroad programs and travel throughout the United States, students don’t want to just be locked into using their cards in their “local school town.” The students that are now coming on to campus, in many circles being billed as the “Echo Boomers,” have always had technology as a part of their world. These are the offspring of the “Baby Boomer” generation and they have grown up in a world of technology being the normal. Their expectation is that ease of use, convenience and transportability should be normal aspects of each day. On campus declining balance accounts still serve specific purposes, but with this new group of young people driving use of technology, I do think we will see the banking partnerships expand throughout the country.

Schools are also looking for ways to save funds due to the very tight fiscal situations on most campuses. Administrators are highly interested in the aspect of using direct deposit for financial aid disbursements and student payroll. Many schools are looking to the banks to help facilitate this movement, and the banks are becoming very knowledgeable in assisting them on this project. Schools are seeing the “hidden savings” when using this process: no more paper checks, ease of reconcilement, no FERPA issues in handing out paper checks, etc….

Due to some very successful programs that are on campuses throughout the country, there is now very good statistical information. The banks are able to see the customer bases that are carrying over after graduation as students are developing life-long relationships with the banks. This statistic has helped banks to see the benefits in getting involved in university card programs. Additionally, many banks are seeing schools tie their entire university banking relationship (cash management, credit card processing, check processing, and the card program) into the requests for proposals giving the bank the ability to become distinctly linked and tagged as the “campus bank” through all aspects.

All of these factors will help to drive the banking partnership concept. No longer will these be just “relationships”, they will truly be “partnerships” between the bank and the university.

About the author: Cindy Vetter currently is the Director of the UNC Card program at the University of Northern Colorado, and started the program over ten years ago. Cindy came to the university from Norwest Banks (now Wells Fargo) where she served in the role of operations manager, bankcard manager, and internal control analyst. She has 22 years of banking experience with an emphasis in procedures and audit controls. Cindy is a graduate of Midwest Business College, and has served as a trainer and conversion speaker for 26 banking locations throughout Colorado. Besides her current job as director of the card program at UNC, Cindy also served six years on the NACCU board, five as the Chair. She also spent nine years working on the conference committee for NACCU. Cindy is a frequent presenter on the circuit and has given presentations at the Colorado Student Loan Program Conference, the National Student Loan Association conference, National Conference for Bursars, the Card Application Technology Center, and NACCU.

Visit UNC’s Card program on the web at http://www.unco.edu/card/