Keynova Group Releases Q2 2021 Credit Card Scorecard Highlighting Leading Issuers and Best-Practice Digital Customer Strategies
Discover Maintains No.1 Credit Card Issuer Ranking; Issuers Ramp up Digital Assistants, Expand Credit Options, and Augment Digital Transaction Measures to Meet Complex Customer Demands
Wilmington, Del., May 5, 2021 – Keynova Group, the leading competitive intelligence firm providing trusted benchmarking insights and analysis for digital financial services since 1999, today announced the results of its Q2 2021 Credit Card Scorecard. Among the digital channels reviewed for leading card issuers, Discover maintained its prior No. 1 rank, followed by a three-way tie between Bank of America, Capital One and Chase. The data also revealed new digital trends in credit card acquisition and servicing including emerging capabilities around virtual assistant (VA) and chatbot deployments, as well as skills for smart home devices, expanded access to credit, and bolstered security capabilities.
“A number of credit card issuers are evolving their digital services to meet multi-faceted consumer demands, but interestingly this shift is not happening uniformly, as issuers are pursuing diverse initiatives,” said Beth Robertson, managing director, Keynova Group. “Over time, we anticipate this trend will help further industry progress toward standardizing the next generation of digital consumer services; however, it also shows the competitive landscape isn’t static as there are currently many opportunities to excel through innovation and enabling new digital best practices.”
Key Findings:
Credit Card Customer Support Evolving Digitally
Customer support is a key area of differentiation among issuers, with some continuing to augment their sophisticated VA tools while others have introduced basic chatbot offerings. While six of the 10 issuers offer mobile chat, text or instant messaging options for customer communication, a select few are offering cross-channel messaging to enable a communication that began in the mobile channel to later be resumed on the desktop or vice versa.
Issuers Prioritizing Expanded Credit Options for Consumers
Several issuers have rolled out new offerings that help consumers build their access to credit, particularly around linking credit cards and personal lending concepts. Several issuers also allow digital channels to be used to shift approved credit between card products, targeting needed credit to the top-of-wallet option.
Security Improvements Take Precedence
With continued expansion in digital transacting, an array of robust security measures continues to be deployed. These include rollout of the Click to Pay Secure Remote Commerce standard for tokenized transacting, virtual card numbers and merchant controls, tracking for recurring and duplicate transactions, and expanded transaction alerts to assist cardholders in identifying possible fraud.
Keynova Group’s semi-annual, fact-based Credit Card Scorecard objectively evaluates 10 leading U.S. consumer credit card issuers’ digital channels and identifies new trends in the competitive landscape. With more than two decades of experience benchmarking credit card issuers’ digital offerings for consumers, Keynova’s Credit Card Scorecard reviews American Express, Bank of America, Barclays U.S. (newly evaluated in the Q2 2021 edition), Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Discover, PNC, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo.
For more information about Keynova Group’s Q2 2021 Credit Card Scorecard, please visit https://www.keynovagroup.com/scorecards/#credit-cards-and-lending.
About Keynova Group
Keynova Group is the leading competitive intelligence firm providing trusted benchmarking insights and analysis of consumer and small business digital financial services, including banking, credit card, home lending, and insurance. Formerly known as Keynote, Keynova Group’s Scorecards have served as the go-to source for leading financial services firms to obtain competitive intelligence and actionable insights since 1999. The firm’s proven methodology and highly detailed results help its clients maximize the value of their digital channels to deliver a top-notch experience to customers and prospects.
For more information:
Eve Lerner
Young & Associates, for Keynova Group
303-410-7162
evel@yapr.com