Instant Issue Debate

Is the ability to instantly issue plastic cards at your credit union worth the investment? Though often debated, this is an easy call, wrote Bob Roth, CBCP, managing director of CUES Supplier member and strategic provider Cornerstone Advisors Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz., in a recent issue of the firm’s GonzoBanker e-newsletter.

“Sign up for instant issue today,” he continued. “When we ran a deep crunch on the numbers, instant issue is cheaper on a per-card basis due to the ever rising postage costs associated with postal service mail delivery.

“But that’s not even the reason you should run to instant issue,” according to Roth, who named these three even more “compelling reasons” for instant issue:

• “Card activation rates are often 10 percent higher after instant issue is implemented. That means that for every 1,000 deposit accounts you have, instant issue can bring close to $10,000 per year in higher interchange revenue.
• “From a customer service standpoint, when you are dealing with one of these very large fraud issues, instant issue can be a great customer benefit as you invite compromised cardholders into the branches to reissue a card the next day. Your trust level with customers goes through the roof.
• “The big banks can issue/reissue a card within two business days. The lead times for our mid-size clients that are not doing instant issue is more like five to seven business days. Giving a new card to a customer who has been compromised the next day via instant issue levels the playing field.”

Read Roth’s perspective on three more payments topics in “GonzoBanker’s Payments Mailbag”.

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