ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – PSCU Financial Services, the card services CUSO for over 500 credit unions which process their card transactions with First Data Inc., has announced that it will pay the balance of the patronage funds it owed its credit unions from 1998 three months early. The money is due in March 2006, but PSCU spokesman Merry Pateuk said the cooperative could make the payment early so it did so. "It just moves the money to our credit unions that much earlier," she said. Each year that it can make patronage payments PSCU delivers 20% of the patronage owed and then puts the balance in a fund which will be paid at a later date. The cooperative said it has posted 9% growth in the first three quarters of 2005 and that its overall patronage payments over its 11-year history as a cooperative equals $45 million.