New Photo Card Options Illustrate Cardholder Benefits

By James Ghiglieri Jr., SHAZAM® Vice President of Corporate Communications

Connecting with people emotionally has been a proven track for effective advertising time and time again. Nothing illustrates this connection more than family photos. Giving cardholders the ability to personalize their debit cards with a photo they choose will create an instantaneous connection to that card, increasing overall card usage, and solidifying them as long term customers.

In the age of the “Me Generation,” personalization and integration are the standards for nearly all new products and services coming to the marketplace. From social media and smart cellular phones to tablet PCs and location-based services, people want the products and services they interact with to incorporate their personality and be easy to use. By offering a personalized debit card, financial institutions are giving cardholders a way to personally connect with their cards in a way they cannot with traditional card programs.

Many photo debit card programs, such as SHAZAM® myPic Studio™, provide these great benefits and expand our preconceived notions of building loyalty in a financial institution’s card program.

Benefits of a Personalized Debit Card Program

These personalized debit cards offer three very compelling benefits to financial institutions, including:

Building Loyalty and Retaining Customers
Personalized cards help your cardholders feel personally connected to their cards. This also increases their reliance on a particular financial institution’s card, making it a more difficult choice to switch to another financial institution, particularly in a situation where their new financial institution does not provide a personalized debit card.

Increasing Activation Rates
Many financial institutions face problems encouraging cardholders to activate their cards after they were issued. After taking the time to build their cards, cardholders cannot wait to receive and use their personally designed cards, increasing activation rates across the board.

Increasing Debit Card Usage and Incremental Revenue
After receiving their personalized debit cards, cardholders begin using their cards exclusively for everyday debit transactions. Industry research finds personalized debit cards generate a 10 to 20 percent increase in monthly transactions, leading to an approximate revenue increase of $45.00 annually per card. This is a tremendous potential revenue opportunity for many financial institutions across the nation.

Three Most Common Types of Photo Cards

While many different personalized debit card providers have a variety of sizing and photo options, in addition to different requirements that must be met, there are general classifications that can be surmised. These are simply representative of the options available to financial institutions in the industry.

One-inch Identification Photo

This personalized debit card incorporates a photo of the cardholder on the card itself. Traditionally, this has been used to help increase card security by offering merchants the ability to visually match the cardholder with the person attempting to use the card. This is still a very effective method of providing an additional security layer to debit card usage.

Two-inch Photo

This personalized debit card incorporates a photo that typically uses about half the real estate on the card. The exact sizing and location of the image vary depending on the card vendor. This allows both the cardholder to incorporate a photo of his or her choice as well as provide the financial institution with the card space needed for branding specifications.

Edge-to-Edge Card Photo

This photo card incorporates a photo of the cardholder’s choosing, encompassing the entire real estate available. This optimizes the room available for a cardholder to select an image and fit it to the entire card, providing a wider selection of photos that will fit in the allocated space in which to choose.

Finding the Right Personalized Debit Card Program for You

It is crucial that financial institutions interested in a personalized debit card program evaluate the options available to them and select the right vendor for them. For example: If a financial institution is concerned with the potential for fraud, carefully consider the importance of issuing identification photo cards over the two-inch or edge-to-edge cards. If a financial institution is more concerned with getting cardholders to activate and use their cards frequently, edge-to-edge cards are the way to go.

Regardless of a particular financial institution’s preferences, it is important to carefully research which vendor is selected. There are a range of options to choose from, in addition to a range of costs that follow each option. It is important to ask tough questions, including questions about maintenance and implementation processes and fees, to interested vendors and determine if their program is right for your financial institution.

Expanding Loyalty Program Thinking

Traditionally, financial institutions have focused on rewards programs as the avenue to building loyalty in their card. With the rise of the Me Generation, we can expand this notion into the personalization realm and reap similar benefits to the traditional rewards program. After all, giving cardholders what they want is the ultimate reward.