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Extend your central and instant issuance strategy with a complementary digital payment solution to give cardholders the convenience and options they want.

In February 2020, Aite-Novarica Group issued a study of 34 retail banking associates and card services executives that said: “Multiple issuers refer to instant digital card issuance as an alternative to in-branch instant issuance. However, issuers with in-branch instant issuance see this innovation as a complement to, and not a replacement for, issuing cards in the branch.”

Today’s consumers want choice and convenience when it comes to their payment methods. And, creating a smooth and seamless experience for cardholders is critical. Adding digital card issuance to an existing instant issuance solution can round out a strong card-issuing strategy and provide a great customer experience by offering the options cardholders want.

How Push Provisioning Differs from a Digital Card

To fully understand push provisioning, issuers must first recognize its distinct properties.

Push provisioning offers a path for the issuer’s mobile app to securely “push” a payment card into the mobile wallet. Instead of having to input card information as with a physical or digital card, a customer could simply accept a push notification and provision their card into the wallet. And because push provisioning doesn’t require the cardholder to input account information, it provides an added layer of security, limiting exposure of card numbers and other details.

3 Benefits of Push Provisioning

How do these differentiating factors measure up to today’s standards? For both the issuer and the cardholder, push provisioning presents an efficient and convenient solution in three ways:

1. Creates an omnichannel strategy:
   Combining a physical card and a digital wallet payment option can increase brand positioning and help to compete for top-of-wallet status. This enables issuers to provide cardholders with payment options that meet their needs, which in turn, may increase card usage, and ultimately the opportunity for interchange revenue.
2. Generates an efficient, quick option:
   Depending on how an issuer manages its cardholder account information, push provisioning could become an automatic process once the cardholder is approved, making it a de facto service that offers immediate gratification. In the case of a lost or stolen card, this approach could simplify replacement and provide a near real-time solution to card availability.
3. Establishes a more secure solution:
   Because push provisioning requires tokenization, the card identification comes from the association’s (for example, Mastercard^®) secure vault. This process creates a singular key or fingerprint for this card, and each transaction that originates from the digital wallet has a unique identifier, limiting the potential for fraud.

Ready to Implement Push Provisioning?

In today’s convenience-first landscape, card issuers must consider push provisioning as a component of their card issuance strategy to remain competitive.

CPI Card Group stands ready to not only provide a tailored solution but also to guide card issuers in developing a push provisioning strategy that supports cardholder preferences, maximizes revenue potential, and provides education. And that makes for a winning approach now and into the future.

What if you could make one change to your product offerings to potentially increase their activation and utilization, create a better customer experience, and simultaneously improve operational efficiencies?

It turns out that it’s possible. By applying instant issuance to a prepaid debit card program, payment card providers could offer immediate satisfaction to their customers and help grow their revenue in the process.

The benefits of instant issuance

For years, banks and credit unions have benefited from introducing an instant issuance strategy that creates multiple advantages for their institutions. Reducing the number of days that a customer must wait to start using a card can help drive more revenue. Industry providers suggest that nearly half of cardholders who are instantly issued cards will begin transacting on the same day. Instant issuance may also contribute to cost savings by eliminating the expense of mailing cards as well as the worry and cost of lost, stolen or damaged cards. ¹ 

What’s more, instant issuance delivers increased customer satisfaction, making it an integral way to meet consumer expectations in the on-demand era. Strong customer experiences can pave the way for loyalty and more business in the future.

Prepaid debit card instant issuance comes into play

These attributes make instant issuance a strong product offering, but historically, it has been available only in a traditional banking environment. Now, given advancements in cloud-based programs, it’s becoming possible for non-bank payment card providers to offer prepaid debit card instant issuance.

Through software-as-a-service (SaaS) functionality, payment providers could cost-effectively and efficiently meet customer demand. They simply log into a secure portal, pull up their product, and print cards at their location.

This innovative card issuance solution could allow the provider to offer a card product in real-time and customers walk away with funds that are quickly accessible. Plus, the fully personalized card is designed to work with mag stripe, EMV^®, and contactless terminals, so once it’s issued, it can become a primary banking tool that’s reloadable and enables the same transactional experiences as a debit card.

The immediate issuance of this personalized card may help to deepen customer engagement and drive a high level of satisfaction by becoming a permanent banking solution. In addition, it offers a solution that helps providers keep physical card costs down thanks to a reloadable feature for when customers want to add value.

A natural step in market evolution

While prepaid debit card instant issuance is an innovative offering, this combination of a prepaid card and instant issuance comes as a natural step in market evolution, combining the benefits of both. When looking to offer this solution, it’s important to have an experienced and trusted provider like CPI Card Group. We’re already a market leader in both prepaid and SaaS-based instant issuance cards and are in the process of bringing the offering to market.

Whether you're just beginning your card journey or are already engaged, instant issuance prepaid debit may not be as complex as you think. Considering the future possibilities now can help you get a leg up on your competition.

Sustainability goals are influencing company identity and mission statements across industries, including the financial sector.  Financial Institutions (FIs) of all sizes are setting sustainability goals, driven by a number of factors, including consumer demand for more eco-focused options. Since payment cards are a major touchpoint with customers, FIs are asking how cards can reflect those sustainability goals while also meeting cardholder preferences, which is good for business.  For example, CPI research shows that more than half (51%) of respondents would switch to a different issuer for a recovered ocean-bound plastic card with the same features and benefits*.  Two major US banks have recently announced their plans to transition to recycled plastic in their payment cards, and others, including American Express, have announced transitions of certain portfolios.

Print-on-demand personalized payment card strategies offer a way for credit and debit card programs to stay timely and targeted in an individualized market.

Personalization matters in today’s highly competitive payments landscape and has become a high priority for credit and debit card issuers. When it comes to credit and debit card programs, making this leap to customizable payment cards has never been easier. Print-on-demand programs are a fast, efficient way to offer tailored products and services, including custom carriers, labels and activation stickers. With their ease of implementation and flexible models, they present ways to engage more personally with the cardholder.  Here are three benefits of print-on-demand credit and debit card programs: