There’s nothing more frustrating for cardholders than waiting for a replacement card to arrive in the mail. This delay in physical card fulfillment equals a significant decrease in transaction volume for financial institutions. Before you embark on your search for the right partner for card issuance development services, it’s essential to understand the advantages of digital card issuance and how your institution and consumers will benefit.

What is digital card issuance?

As digital payments become widely accepted and adopted, consumers increasingly rely on their mobile wallets to make payments for goods and services. When card providers and issuers offer digital card issuance as an option, it allows cardholders and consumers to access their cards and accounts in a mobile wallet. This method gives them unparalleled convenience like never before, allowing them to make secure, contactless digital payments.

The benefits of digital card issuance for financial institutions

As a business, choosing a suitable processing and card issuance provider can take considerable time and effort. Seamlessly integrating card issuing processes and road mapping strategy can be difficult, and it’s important to remember that API and technical evaluation are essential factors when building your digital issuance options.

For financial institutions, offering digital card issuance services gives you a competitive advantage in the digital payments ecosystem. The immediacy of a digital card gives your institution top-of-wallet status while fostering cardholder loyalty and establishing trust. 

By ensuring secure and immediate digital access to your cardholders, your institution wins by offering best-in-class customer service and new opportunities to drive revenue.

The benefits of digital card issuance for cardholders

Compared to physical cards, digital card issuance is an appealing payment option because of its low-cost, flexible, seamless, and secure payment access for consumers. Individuals do not need to invest in hardware, and the flexibility to request a new or replacement card and receive one on demand can go a long way to cultivating cardholder loyalty to your institution. Furthermore, digital issuance presents added security benefits. Credentials are shared directly with the consumer, with no data exchange through third-party printers or processors.

Digital card experiences can also drive card acquisition, usage and growth. Activation upon card issuance maximizes activation rates, increases card usage and reduces any lag time in emergency card replacement or re-issuance situations. 

But digital issuance services allow financial service providers to offer a wide range of services beyond card procurement. These include, setting geographic spending limits, enabling (or disabling) contactless purchases or enabling EMV tokenization for digital wallets—giving consumers complete control over their digital payments, no matter where they are. Further, push provisioning makes it easy for consumers to push digital cards into third-party digital wallets, like ApplePay, Google Pay and other e-commerce merchants, for easy spending online or in-store. 

Building the right digital card issuance option

Identifying the right digital issuance option for your institution matters. Depending on your short and long-term product goals, keep in mind the following factors when selecting your card issuing and providing processors or building your own digital payment strategies: 

1. Digital issuance and internal policies: digital issuance must align with your institution’s fraud and internal re-issue risk policies.
2. Integrating digital issuance and system functionality: ensure card issuance providers offer functionalities and features that meet your product goals.
3. Certification and PCI compliance: if your business operates with any sensitive payment data, then card brands must comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Taking into account the time needed for certification can help reduce unnecessary friction when your product is ready to go to market.

Digital wallets are slated to make up 52% of e-commerce transactions by 2024. No matter the use case, you can start designing a best-in-class payment experience by consulting experts in the digital financial services space.

Become a key player in the digital wallet space, better serve your customers and learn how FinTech consulting can launch the best card issuance options for your institution. Get started on your simplified payment journey with Star.