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finance & strategy
Special Section: Cards Still Present
Fiserv: General Use with
a Personal Touch
While several major retail- ers—most notably, Star- bucks—have found success with merchant-specific mobile payment and loyalty apps, general-use mobile wallets face
a far tougher row to hoe, notes Jamie Topolski, director, alternative payment strategies, Fiserv. As such, mobile payments are likely to re- main a supplemental form factor
in the near term, with consumers using apps for certain retailers they frequent, but relying mainly on plastic cards for the majority of their shopping, loyalty and gifting, Topolski predicts.
“Bringing mobile wallets to ubiq- uity is a much harder thing to do than retailer apps, because it means changing behavior on a major scale. And, there are still questions as to where you can use mobile and how well it works, so mobile will be an additive tool for the foreseeable future.”
Even in the gifting vertical—which has seen a recent surge in digital gifting—plastic is still far better suited to general use than mobile. “In open-loop gifting, you still, for the most part, need a real piece of plastic,” Topolski says. Even for merchant-specific gifts, advances in card production technologies, such as high-quality materials and features like personalization and light-up elements, can boost the experiential value of receiving a physical card over a digital gift.
“People still like to get physical things,” he notes. The advantage
Issuers are opting for compelling designs and visual effects to make their cards stand out. Some are using the EMV shift as an opportunity to revamp their card designs.
of a physical object extends into the branding arena, too, with innovative new finishes and materi- als helping add value to an issuer’s brand. “A physical card is a valu- able piece of real estate that can be leveraged as a billboard when cardholders open their wallets,” Topolski continues.
To capitalize on this opportunity, many issuers have begun moving visual elements, such as network holograms to the card back, to present a clean, uncluttered front that conveys only the desired branding. The U.S. switch to EMV technology—and re-issuance of
existing cards—also presents a key opportunity for issuers to redesign and modernize their card designs, he adds.
Ultimately, the value of plastic cards may simply lie in their convenience and widespread acceptability—two things the rise of mobile is unlikely to change, notes Topolski. “Despite being perhaps not as interesting as mobile payments, plastic cards
are always ‘on,’ they’re easy to carry and pull out, and they work everywhere,” he concludes. “That’s a powerful combination to offer any consumer.”