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Study finds growing demand for bankcard mobile controls

Mobile card controls go hand-in-hand with the strongest trends in banking — self-service technology and improved account security.

September 23, 2014

Since the first mobile card controls rolled out in 2012, a few hundred FIs have offered the service to cardholders. But their success has gone largely unrecognized, partly because early adopters were relatively small community banks and credit unions.

However, a new research note from Mercator Advisory Group finds that the future for this technology is promising. Mobile card controls go hand-in-hand with the strongest trends in banking — self-service technology and improved account security.

"Are Mobile Controls the Next Essential Product Feature for Credit Card Accounts?" reviews emerging vendor solutions and explains the business opportunity they represent.

“Implementations of card controls have so far been concentrated among debit portfolios, and a simple on-off authorization switch has been the most utilized feature,” said Michael Misasi, senior analyst in the credit advisory service at Mercator and the primary author of the research note. “There is potentially a very significant opportunity for credit issuers to use a more comprehensive feature set to capture spend from other payment types and decrease some customer service and fraud resolution expenses.”

Highlights of the note include:

• an overview of card control functionality;
• data from Mercator's 2014 CustomerMonitor Survey Series showing consumer interest in payment card controls;
• analysis of key use cases for credit card portfolios, such as reducing customer service contacts, preventing fraud, and capturing more spending;
• a review of four important solution providers; and
• the outlook for mobile credit card controls, including possible implementation challenges.

One of eight exhibits in the 13-page note: