By DAVID MORRISON CU Times Staff Reporter ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.-- The business has changed a great deal since Steve Ruwe, PSCUFinancial Services' first chief risk officer, started working withcredit cards. In 1979, Ruwe, then a 24 year-old lending officer atGary-Wheaton Bank, a community bank in the Chicago area that wassmall enough that it celebrated when it grew to more than $100million in assets, stepped up and volunteered to lead theinstitution's new bank card program. Bank cards were a very newstep for the bank and Ruwe said the task of managing the program,in a way, fell to him by default. "I think their perception wasthat I was the one young enough and with enough energy to take iton," Ruwe said, "and that was how I first got involved with cards."It has been a relationship that he has maintained ever since,across a wide spectrum of changes. "Back then, merchants woulddeliver their card receipts to us and we would bundle them up andsend them off to actually get keyed in," Ruwe said, "and thetransactions wouldn't post to accounts until two days later. Nowyou can make a card transaction and find it posted to your accountalmost immediately." Likewise, in the early days, the industryalmost dealt with card underwriting and fraud risk on the honorsystem. "I can remember actually going to a delinquent cardholder'sdoor in order to get the card back because, back then, that was theonly way we had to make sure they stopped using it," Ruwe said."Authorizations were almost done by voice back then, when they weredone at all." Ruwe helped the bank get its card program underwayand then moved on to Visa in 1983, starting a 23-year career movingbetween Visa and banks that issue Visa. On the way he said he got avery good feel for both the perspective of the card brand and thefinancial institutions that issued the cards. Along the way heworked for Barclays Bank as well as Household Credit Services rightwhen Household was rolling out the brand new General Motors rewardscard, which allowed cardholders to earn rewards points toward thepurchase of a new GM car. "At the time that was probably thelargest and most innovative rewards program out there," Ruwe said.For the last 13 years, until September of this year, Ruwe served asVisa's executive vice president of operations and risk where heserved many different facets of the card brand both domesticallyand overseas. Then, turning 53, Ruwe decided to retire. Visa'semployee benefit package has always been good, dating to the timewhen the brand was a much smaller association trying to keepemployees from taking more lucrative jobs in the growing industry."I guess I came to a point where I had enough years to retire anddecided to go ahead and take that step," Ruwe said. He added thathe hadn't stopped with Visa because he was tired of working withcards or because he felt any compelling call to do anything elsespecific. It was just time. Ruwe credited his coming to PSCU to along-standing friendship he had with PSCU CEO David Serlo. The twomet when Serlo had served on a Visa committee that Ruwe chaired andSerlo called him when he heard Ruwe was leaving Visa to offer him achance to take the helm of managing risk for the CUSO. Creditunions were coming under real pressure on the questions of cardfraud and risk mitigation and Serlo has said he was looking forsomeone who could bring a level of expertise and drive to a verycomplex and urgent position. Ruwe said he joined up with PSCUbecause he sensed in the position a chance to build something forcredit unions and maybe leave a lasting impact. "I want to be sureeveryone understands that I am not saying that credit unions arenecessarily doing anything wrong," Ruwe said, "because they're not.But I think I can help build on what credit unions are alreadydoing right and make sure credit unions have access to the toolsthey need to manage risk. Credit unions shouldn't have to playsecond fiddle to anyone in the industry when it comes to riskmanagement." The fact that PSCU has opened a service center inPhoenix also helped convince him to come with PSCU, he said.Phoenix is a relatively short distance from San Mateo where he andhis wife Kathy and their younger daughter, Hannah, live. An olderdaughter, Kellen, attends a university in the state of Washington."It has been helpful that PSCU has been as focused as it has beenon family," Ruwe said. Ruwe admitted that prior to coming to PSCUhe really hadn't had much contact with credit unions, other thanworking with them as Visa issuers. But he added that, in many ways,working for an association like Visa is a lot like working for acredit union or CUSO in that both an association and a credit unionare going to be focused on their members. "If anything, that focusis even stronger at a credit union," Ruwe said, "because there is alot more focus on all the members." Ruwe's long experience in thecredit card industry tends to give him a long-term view of creditcard security issues and makes him a bit of an optimist as well. Hepointed out that the cards that consumers have now are the resultof the industry reaction to previous risks and fraud losses. Heused, as an example, previous problems with fraudsterscounterfeiting cards. Countering that problem led to thedevelopment of the CVV data being added to cards and this problemwill, in turn, lead to issuers tightening up their procedures tocounter the changing risk. He also noted that the adoption of a newindustry-wide card security technology, such as using embeddedcomputer chips and personal identification numbers with cardtransactions would only happen if there is a strong business casefor it. "Even with the uptick in fraud losses as a percentage oftotal card volume, the industry still believes that applying theavailable anti-fraud methods properly will be enough to reign inthe losses," Ruwe said. "What I hope to do is to build a resourcewhich will help credit unions do just that, "he [email protected]