PSCU and University of South Florida Practice Center Announce Completion of Internet of Things Summer Program

Grant-funded program provides IoT learning opportunity for students

St. Petersburg, Fla.– (October 24, 2017) – PSCU and the University of South Florida (USF) Practice Center have announced the completion of an Internet of Things (IoT) summer semester program. PSCU and USF brought business and academia together to create an integrated IoT learning experience for the two students in USF’s Master of Business Analytics program. The 12-week program was funded by a grant from PSCU, allowing the students to explore financial services use cases for IoT devices such as the Amazon Echo and Google Home devices.

As presented in a PSCU-sponsored white paper with Javelin Strategy & Research titled, “The Credit Union Guide to Opportunities in Iot, Biometrics and E-Commerce,” credit unions today must deploy proactive strategies in order for their cards to be the payment preference of choice in new connected devices and wallets. Partnerships like the one between PSCU and USF contribute to PSCU’s mission of providing the most advanced and innovative solutions for its Member-Owner credit unions.

Throughout the IoT summer program, PSCU and the participating students gained valuable insights and learned best practices from working with the devices. The partnership gave the students experiential opportunities to work with the latest technology while leveraging creativity and rapid prototyping to deliver a proof of concept to solve real-world problems. In addition, they learned the value of linking ideas and concepts to the overarching credit union mission of “people helping people” and the importance of their findings on the member experience. A USF Muma College of Business Analytics faculty member helped guide the students by contributing expertise and experience to further enhance the program.

PSCU will use the program’s findings to further enhance its innovation strategy of exploring new technology while gaining unique perspectives on how the member experience can evolve in the future. The findings also helped inform PSCU on how to anticipate the potential convergence of artificial intelligence and IoT devices as servicing opportunities in the future. PSCU plans to leverage the students’ work in additional proof of concepts, the development of key insights for credit unions and PSCU’s annual KnockOut event.

“We saw this as a unique opportunity for PSCU to collaborate and innovate using new technology and chose USF given its history of partnering with other financial service leaders in the Tampa Bay area,” said Priya Dozier, VP of Digital Solutions and Innovation at PSCU. “We were impressed with the knowledge and talent of the students and look forward to building on the program’s findings for our credit unions.”

The students left the experience feeling the opportunity had given them a great deal of insight into the latest trends in artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, the IoT and the credit union industry as a whole. The opportunity to join forces with an organization focused on innovating to solve business problems was a fulfilling takeaway for the students.

“PSCU provided our students with an amazing opportunity to further their experiences in the classroom and apply their knowledge to a functioning organization’s mission,” said Kaushik Dutta, Associate Professor and Program Director for the Muma College of Business Analytics at USF. “Our students will no doubt take their learnings from this experience with them during the rest of their college career and beyond.”

About PSCU

Established in 1977, PSCU (St. Petersburg, Fla.) is the nation's leading credit union service organization (CUSO). The company was recognized as CUSO of the Year in 2016 by the National Association of Credit Union Service Organizations. PSCU’s products, financial services solutions and service model collectively support over 850 Owner credit unions representing more than 20 million credit, debit, prepaid, online bill payment and mobile accounts; protect over 2 billion transactions annually from fraud; and optimize credit union performance and growth. Comprehensive 24/7/365 member support is delivered through call centers located throughout the United States. For more information, visit pscu.com.