U.S. bank credit card profits for the top U.S. Visa and MasterCard (V/M) issuers declined 3.5% year-on-year (Y/Y) and 5.4% quarter-on-quarter (Q/Q) in the first quarter (Q1). According to CardData, Q1 revenue dropped 12.1% Y/Y and 8.9% Q/Q.
There comes a time when some agent card programs elect to pick a new service provider. Perhaps because of erratic service level performance at the current provider, or due to new account rewards which seems to be less than competitive market value, because a current contract has reached its contractual period ending, or even due to an existing provider exiting from that business.
Whatever the reason(s), there are number of preliminary steps one must go through to ensure the change is a smooth one for your card members and meets your expectations. In managing over 800 such agent card programs over three decades in the card business, R.K. Hammer has some strong opinions about how to achieve the best outcome.
Chase Card Services and Marriott Rewards announced the launch of the Marriott Rewards Premier Visa Signature® Business Credit Card designed for small business owners who travel frequently for business or pleasure. With the Marriott Rewards Premier Business Credit Card, small business owners have the ability to earn accelerated Marriott Reward points on all purchases, accumulate free night stays, and receive automatic Silver Elite Status once they become a cardholder. The card also offers EMV chip-and-signature technology, charges no foreign transaction fees and comes with a variety of travel and business benefits. With the Marriott Rewards Premier Business Credit Card, small business owners have the ability to earn Marriott Rewards points at an accelerated rate. Cardholders will earn thousands of points for different increments spent on the card. The card also comes with travel insurance benefits, including trip cancellation, trip delay, lost luggage, baggage delay and auto collision damage waiver. Additional benefits include purchase protection insurance, including purchase security and extended warranty.
First Data appointed Christopher Foskett head of global, strategic and national accounts. He will lead the organization responsible for bringing strategic value, business partnership and new innovation to the firm’s major financial institution, retail, government and business clients. Foskett most recently was global head of sales for J.P. Morgan’s Treasury Services business and regional executive of the Treasury Services business for North America. Foskett brings a wealth of experience from his 30-year career in financial services spanning a wide range of client-facing activities across corporate and investment banking and transaction services. Global Finance magazine has cited Chris as one the select bankers featured in their ranking of “Who’s Who in Treasury and Cash.
American Express Group (AXP) President, Enterprise Growth, Dan Schulman, will participate in the Sanford Bernstein “Disruptive Trends in Financial Services” Conference in New York City. He will oversee and participate in a question and answer session relating to the company’s Enterprise Growth business and digital payments strategy.
Barclays has appointed Michael Harte as Chief Operations and Technology Officer. A member of the Group’s Executive Committee, Michael is currently Group Executive of Enterprise Services and Chief Information Officer at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia Group (CBA). Prior to CBA, he held Chief Information Officer, IT and Operations and Technology roles at PNC Financial Services and at Citigroup.
Unity Bank plc has recorded a 1Q/14 26% profit before tax from the year ago period, corresponding with its mandatory annual re-certification of its PCIDSS. The bank also received its Report on Compliance (RoC) from the external Qualified Security Assessor (QSA), NetHost Legislation Ltd. This is in line with the directive from the Central Bank of Nigeria that all banks must achieve certification to the PCI standards, Unity Bank had successfully attained its certification on April 5, ahead of almost three-quarter of the banks in the country and is among the first to complete its annual recertification. The bank has also disclosed that to ensure that it continues to maintain its high security standards for the protection of card-holder data and card production environments, it is putting resources in place to train its own team of Internal Security Assessors (ISAs) to lead future recertification exercises and work with external Qualified Security Assessors (QSAs) to obtain RoC.
IT Governance is excited to announce that its niche IT-GRC publishing imprint, ITGP, will release its PCI DSS v3.0 Documentation Toolkit. The PCI DSS v3.0 Documentation Toolkit provides organisations with a comprehensive set of pre-written PCI DSS v3.0-compliant documents, as well as highly useful desktop tools to help them analyse and navigate their way around PCI compliance. It includes newly developed tools and guidance such as a Document Checker, Gap Analysis Tool, ISO27001:2013 Mapping Tool and 2 licences to PCI DSS Staff Awareness eLearning, particularly useful for all merchants and service providers.
FleetCor Technologies fuel cards and workforce payment products to businesses, confirmed that it has signed a long term fuel card system processing contract with Chevron covering Asia-Pac and South Africa. Using its Global FleetNet (GFN) fuel card processing platform, FleetCor will process transactions for Chevron’s private label commercial card program fuel card in six Asia-Pac markets plus South Africa. The in-scope geographies are Hong Kong, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and New Zealand. Chevron has a significant position across Asia-Pac and South Africa and private label commercial fuel cards are a major part of its ongoing development in these markets.
IXcellerate announced that Moscow One Datacentre achieved the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) certification, the most thorough global payment-card security standard within the industry. This worldwide information security standard was set up by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council to protect sensitive information and avoid possibilities of a fraud. Verizon, an internationally recognised leader in security and technologies that need to be protected, issued this prestigious certification to Moscow One Datacentre. Since any organisation that handles card data is required to meet PCI DSS, a failure to comply can be costly not only for an organization but also for its clients.
PT JCB International Indonesia, subsidiary of JCB International Co., Ltd., the international operations arm of JCB Co., Ltd. (hereinafter collectively “JCB”), and Bank Negara Indonesia (“BNI”) are pleased to announce the launch of the Kartu Kredit BNI JCB Platinum card. BNI was the first bank in Indonesia, established by the government in 1946, and now has a nationwide network of 1,694 outlets spread throughout 34 provinces and 384 counties in Indonesia and 11,175 ATMs serving the Indonesian people. BNI is one of the top ranked in the credit industry as well, having issued 1.7 million cards to consumers and acquiring credit transactions at 40,000 merchants. JCB cards are today issued in 16 countries with 83 million cardmembers and accepted at 24 million merchants in 190 countries and territories around the world. JCB entered into the Indonesian market in 1983 to expand JCB card acceptance and JCB card issuing to residents of Indonesia was launched in 1996. JCB and BNI signed an issuing and acquiring license agreement in May 2013, culminating in the launch of the new Platinum card.
Responding to the needs of its growing multinational customer base, Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) announced it has expanded its commercial card portfolio to Europe by offering the European Commercial Card, where commercial card transactions in pound sterling or euros will now be easier to process, track, and report. Supported by MasterCard, one of Wells Fargo’s longtime credit card partners in the United States, the Wells Fargo European Commercial Card can be used in 37 million outlets worldwide. The European Commercial Card solution balances enhanced controls and local, regional, and global management oversight with international traveler convenience through a global card expense reporting tool via Wells Fargo’s Commercial Electronic Office® (CEO®) portal. This tool permits company financial officers and their employees the ability to monitor commercial card transactions, such as travel expenditures (e.g. airfare, hotel, rail), use data for local, regional or global strategic sourcing opportunities, and maintain visibility over expenses.