THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 10, 1994 TAG: 9411100589
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 49 lines
Hoping to reduce congestion at military commissaries and cut its losses on bad checks, the Defense Commissary Agency plans to test the use of credit cards for purchases at two dozen commissaries.
If the pilot program works, all 270 commissaries in the United States and 83 overseas commissaries eventually will accept credit cards, Greg Kochuba, a systems accountant with the Defense Commissary Agency at Fort Lee, Va., said Wednesday.
``Right now our sales are really high on military paydays - the first and the 15th of each month - and there are long lines in the stores,'' Kochuba said. ``We hope that with credit cards, this traffic will level out.''
The agency, he said, also is trying to trim its losses on bad checks, which totaled 88,000 last year.
The Camp Lejeune Marine base commissary in North Carolina began accepting credit cards Tuesday. The commissary at the Marine Corps' New River air station near Camp Lejeune will do so today.
Military commissaries, which sell groceries and household items to members of the armed forces, their dependents and retirees, have more than $6 billion of combined annual sales.
Two dozen commissaries already accept debit cards for purchases, and their use probably will be expanded to all 353 commissaries, Kochuba said.
Unlike a credit card, a debit card immediately deducts the amount of a purchase from a customer's checking account and does not extend credit.
The fees for processing the card transactions at commissaries will be paid by the Treasury Department, which stands to benefit from speedier payments, Kochuba said.
The commissary agency said that it chose Charlotte-based NationsBank to process its card transactions.
The added work probably will not require NationsBank to expand the work force at its card-processing facility in Norfolk, said Ellison Clary, a spokesman for the banking company.
The NationsBank operation employs 1,300, including 275 who process card transactions for merchants.
NationsBank said that it will work with the Armed Forces Financial Network, a Tampa-based network of automated teller machines and point-of-sale terminals that has been processing debit-card transactions for 24 commissaries. by CNB