SAN FRANCISCO — Are credit unions making the most of their key trading currencies of data and information? That was the question posed to a session at the Marketing Association of Credit Unions’ annual conference.

Stessa Cohen, research director for banking/investment services at Gartner, told the group Thursday that an inability to look beyond the immediate customer relationship will be the single most damaging omission that financial services companies make over the next five years.

“We need to listen in on those social network conversations, see the data and information and understand why consumers are spending time there,” said Cohen. “Networks are expanding and changing, embrace them all – not just your own – and find a way to leverage them and figure out how you’ll support those customers.”

She added that credit unions already have a lot of data on their members that can be used to develop value-added services. For example, the most common mobile banking activity of young adults age 18-24 is not transactional but looking for branches and ATMs.

Location-based apps will grow, Cohen said, so in building a mobile financial services strategy look at areas where banking and payments overlap across all areas of the credit union and use a matrix to identify those products/services that can’t be done now but maybe can be created on mobile devices.

“Your customers have lives outside of banking. Look beyond the immediate financial services relationship, understand the influences that shape those lives and find new opportunities for product/services and ways to communicate with them,” said Cohen. “Think how to move your credit union forward beyond the next five years.”

The three-day MAC conference began Wednesday at the Westin Market in San Francisco.