News

Study: Cardholder account control via mobile device

June 6, 2014

Whether it was a strategy by FIs to reduce call center costs or a response to their customers’ wish to prevent fraudulent use of their cards, debit account control via mobile app is now a reality. And an increasing number of vendors are offering it.

Almost 50 percent of consumers are interested in having the ability control the use of their payment cards themselves, according to the TSYS “2013 Consumer Payment Choice Study.”

The latest research note from Mercator Advisory Group, “Cardholder Account Controls via Mobile Devices,” discusses how a quiet development effort exploded when the data breaches of 2013 hit.

According to a Mercator news release, the next question the market will ask is, "What is the best array of mobile cardholder account controls?"

On-off control is a given. Some vendors are also offering functionalities that allow consumers to control spending limits or to block certain transaction types and locations. Time will tell how broad the service offering needs to be in order to become truly valuable to consumers, the release said. 

"It is worth noting that such a seemingly simple and intuitive tool has taken such a long time to come to market," said Ron Mazursky, director of the debit advisory service at Mercator and author of the Research Note. “In reality the concept has been around for years, but it took the data breaches of 2013 to bring consumers' need for control over transactions on their own debit cards into the mainstream.”

Highlights of the 10-page research note include:

• stakeholder needs and benefits;
• debit issuers, processors and core banking platforms that currently offer cardholder account controls;
• types of controls available;
• new vendor profiles; and
• predicted developments in cardholder account controls.