ST. LOUIS — Data is steadily rolling in that demonstrates creditunions with flat or underperforming credit card portfolios canbreathe more life into their card programs with the addition of alittle Platinum.

The latest example comes from the $175 million Neighbors CreditUnion, headquartered in St. Louis, which reported boosting theoutstanding balances of its roughly 6,000 card credit cardportfolio by converting most of its Classic and Gold Visa brandedcards to a Platinum card program and by implementing a rewardsprogram, according to PSCU Financial Services, the card processingCUSO which helped the CU make the switch and offered the rewardsprogram.

The CU began offering the rewards option after implementingrisk-based pricing, which allowed it to offer its most reliablecardholders interest rates as low as 7.95%, PSCU said.