Credit unions will need to continue to seek out and provide afull – and expanding – range of services if they wish to positionthemselves as their members' payment provider of choice in2012.

Particular areas of focus in the coming year will be inperson-to-person and mobile payments and in image capture.

Credit and debit card services also will see growth in a slowlyrecovering economy, which prepaid cards showing particularly stronguptake.

Here is a more in-depth look at these areas.

Person-to-Person Payments

With more financial institutions and third-party providersputting serious marketing muscle behind their person-to-personpayment offerings, consumer awareness of the category will growexponentially in 2012.

P2P payment networks will grow as well, adding more financialinstitutions and consumers, and their focus will expand to includesmall business participants. Small businesses will increasingly beable to leverage P2P networks to both request money (send invoices)and receive payments.

Although network growth and enhancements will expand theavailability and convenience of P2P, it will be interoperabilitybetween networks that serves as the catalyst for P2P to become aubiquitous service. Some networks may take initial steps towardinteroperability as 2012 progresses.

Mobile Payments

According to a Forrester Consulting survey commissioned byFiserv in late 2011, top-tier financial institutions will befocused on delivering mobile bill payments and mobile P2P paymentsin 2012.

Mobile bill payment is already starting to see use, with morethan 6 million households paying a bill from their smartphone lastyear. Consumer interest in mobile bill payments will continue toincrease, particularly for expedited payments.

As noted above, financial institutions will continue to buildout person-to-person payment offerings, making these servicesavailable through smartphones and even tablets.

While the Forrester Consulting survey mentioned above showedthat financial institutions are less focused on remote payments(such as those initiated via a mobile browser) and point-of-salepayments, it is advisable for credit unions to go ahead and startthinking about plans for delivering those services so they will notbe caught off guard in the rapidly developing mobile space.

Card Payments

The slow economic recovery will continue to keep cardholderspending patterns cautious, although growth rates in each segmentwill be positive.

Debit

Debit card transaction volume is positioned to growapproximately 9% – despite interchange pressures. This growth willbe due in large part to payment behaviors cardholders adoptedduring the recession and the spending patterns of youngerconsumers. In general, cardholders will remain extremelycomfortable with debit cards and will continue to value the easeand control debit provides to their daily financial lives.

Credit

Issuers will make credit products more attractive with rewardsand other enticements, consumers will slowly loosen their wallets,and transaction purchase volume is positioned to grow by 7%.

More credit unions will also get back into credit card issuingbecause they will realize that not having their own credit cardoffering is a significant gap in their member valueproposition.

Prepaid

The prepaid market will continue to experience tremendousgrowth, with general purpose reloadable card loads increasing byupwards of 40% this year.

Some growth will be driven by financial institutions re-pricingtheir debit and depository services, effectively pushing consumersout of traditional financial products and into the prepaidchannel.

Image Capture

As productivity and efficiency remain top-of-mind businesspriorities, credit unions will continue to recognize and embracethe inherent benefits of image capture – including streamlinedprocessing, lower per-item costs and reduced transportationexpenses – and use this technology to seamlessly clear, settle andpost to core.

The ongoing changes in the corporate credit union environmentmay prompt more credit unions to reconsider their item processingoptions and look at the value of newer technologies that feature acommon Web-based platform for check processing and imaging, whichfurther streamlines processes and mitigates risk through fasterduplicate detection.

We'll also continue to see growth in mobile capture—taking acheck image via smartphone for remote deposit—as yet anotherself-service digital product for members.

Bruce Hopkinsis general manager, Processing Solutions, Card Services,for Fiserv Inc. in Brookfield, Wis.