What is instant issuance?

Instant issuance is a card printing capability that allows for the on-demand printing of any financial card (debit, credit, ATM), putting permanent and ready-to-use cards in your customers’ hands in minutes.

Transform the customer experience with instant card issuance (Part 1 of 4)

Our world of immediate choices and gratification is putting new demands and expectations from consumers on businesses who work to provide an improved landscape of experiences, products and services.

The outcome of this tug of war has led to the development of amazing capabilities, and a revolution in every industry. Connectivity plus the ability to access information and even people instantly, have created an expectation that whatever we want should be possible whenever we want it.

The banking world is not immune to this expectation. As a result, instant card issuance has been gaining popularity with financial institutions, seeking to fulfill their customers’ expectations.

At the end of 2016, estimates show that 23% of financial institutions – 2,715 in total – in the U.S. had deployed an instant issuance solution, with 2017 forecasts of 3,312. By 2021, almost 5,500 financial institutions will have instant issuance, representing a 55% market adoption [1].

In 2017, an estimated 8.9 million credit cards and 17.8 million debit cards were issued in branch. By 2021, this number is expected to increase to 18.9 million credit cards and 27.1 million debit cards [1]. The adoption of instant issuance is accelerating as more financial institutions see the value to their customer base, overall card portfolio profitability and the ease of implementation.

According to Aite Group’s 2017 report on instant issuance, now that one third of U.S. banks have implemented instant issuance, there will be increased pressure downstream for smaller banks and credit unions to implement instant issuance to achieve parity [1]. Aite Group defined three reasons why instant issuance has become so important:

1. Being able to provide the customer with a new card quickly after it has been compromised.

2. Transaction migration: opportunity for bankers to educate customers about self-service offerings.

3. Increased revenue: the immediate card in hand drives activation usage, resulting in incremental interchange revenue.

This blog series will explore how instant issuance is transforming the customer experience for financial institutions. We will investigate how instant issuance has a positive impact on customers, and can increase card usage, profitability and sustain growth. Next, we will review a live customer use case and show you how to update your business strategy with instant issuance. Lastly, we will provide some key considerations for evaluating an instant card issuance solution for your financial institution.

NEXT IN THE SERIES: Three ways instant issuance transforms the customer experience

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1 – ‘Instant Issuance: U.S. Current State Assessment’, AITE Group, 2017