Frequent travelers beware your plastic may not work so smoothly outside the US
New York, NY Providing a favorable customer experience for valued credit cardholders has always been a priority among lenders, and in the post-CARD Act environment it has become even more important. One main challenge facing issuer’s in their quest to maintain their existing customer base is balancing fraud protection with the point of sale experience.
Frequent international travelers are a particular customer population that makes this challenge even more difficult for lenders. This segment is highly vulnerable to being attacked with fraud while traveling abroad and is simultaneously sensitive to a card disruption at the point of sale. Based on lender specific fraud strategies, issuers often decline a purchase and shut down a card for future use in order to verify out-of-pattern or suspicious spending activity. The customer is then left abroad with no use of their card and many times without appropriate awareness of the reason behind the card shutdown [until they contact the lender].
ACG suggests two approaches to navigate this difficult balancing act in a manner that will improve customer satisfaction and manage risk. Historic behaviors can be reviewed over extended periods of time in order to appropriately identify customers who belong to this population. After building out this customer category, issuers then must be prepared to provide “customized” treatment. Approving certain common travel purchases such as hotel and restaurant charges, and still declining other suspicious purchases such as high-ticket jewelry is a customer-friendly treatment that limits exposure for the bank, while still providing some card usage. Issuers can also begin arming customers within the frequent traveler category with Chip and PIN cards to use abroad. The ability for customers to have a payment device that is regionally accepted will mitigate fraud risk, improve point of sale acceptance, and increase satisfaction.
Issuers that choose to implement these approaches have the ability to achieve a well sought after goal – gaining incremental loyalty from a high spending, profitable customer segment.
About Auriemma Consulting Group
Auriemma Consulting Group (ACG) is a full-service management consulting firm serving the payments and lending industries since 1984. With offices in New York and London, ACG consultants are experienced practitioners, drawn from the credit card, private label, auto finance, mortgage, and retail banking industries that we serve. For more information, contact Dr. Patricia Sahm at 212-323-7000 or patricia.sahm@acg.net.
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