Cards and technology

      The new (not that new) technology in banking cards' payment is the contactless payment.Visa, MasterCard and American Express allow customers to pay, up to an amount of 20€ for Visa and MasterCard, and 25€ for American Express, without typing their code.

       Their main argument around the technology is that,it is fast and easy (sometimes secured but that is another story).

The principle is simple. You credit card is equiped with the technology and then you just have to put it on the terminal and that’s it.

                                               

Then comes the question of security. The contactless way of payment is ot as secured as it seems. That’s one of the reason why the payment is reserved for small amounts.

MasterCard just innovate in this way with their partnership with Zwipe and just create the world’s first fingerprint authenticated contactless payment card. This card includes an integrated biometric sensor and the Zwipe secure biometric authentication technology coupled with the MasterCard’s contactless application.

With this innovation, MasterCard his a step forward from his competitors. Security is one of the most important criteria for customers.

Visa responds to MasterCard by building a partnership with Worldline to create a new technology: the Host Card Emulation which is compatible with Android 4.4. This technology is their own technology of contactless payment. This solution will be launched the first semester of 2015.

All those initiatives are just to respond to Apple. In fact, Apple has launched, with their new Iphone 6, the Apple Pay. This a contactless method of payment, using the NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, integrated in their mobile phones.. In partnership with MasterCard and Visa, it's a new opportunity and certainly a great move in the banking sector.

                                             

We can see that we are slowly moving from classic credit cards to the use of mobile phones for our payments. Is it the end of a period? 

Crisis Communication

The main factor of crisis for credit card brands is the fraud through computer breaches.

v  The subprimes crisis in 2007 didn’t have a direct impact on these brands, contrary to banks.

The only one example of crisis communication about it is the American Express’s one. During this period, the company monetised its customer relationship. It gave a reward of 300 dollars to its risky clients who accepted to close their count and to pay back their debts. American Express didn’t reveal the numbers of concerned people, but it’s about few rentable clients and, above all, who presented a risk of no pay back of credit.

 

 

 

v  Thus, in crisis communication, Visa and MasterCard illustrates themselves in communications about credit card fraud essentially.

In 2005, MasterCard International reported that more than 40 million credit card accounts of all brands might have been exposed to fraud through a computer security breach at a payment processing company, perhaps the largest case of stolen consumer data to date.

MasterCard said its analysts and law enforcement officials had identified a pattern of fraudulent charges that were traced to an intrusion at CardSystems Solutions of Tucson, Ariz., which processes more than $15 billion in payments for small to midsize merchants and financial institutions each year.

About 20 million Visa and 13.9 million MasterCard accounts were compromised. A MasterCard spokeswoman, Sharon Gamsin, said an infiltrator had managed to place a computer code or script on the CardSystems network that made it possible to extract information. She would not elaborate on how long the breach might have lasted, on when the inquiry began or on whether any infiltrators had been identified. She did say that the breach occurred this year.

Thus, in this case we notice that the crisis communication for credit cards brands is essentially based on the main information without providing more details about the major issue. There is no information about the time, the way that the issue would be solved.

 

v  The other main issue is about the competitors.

For instance, in 2012, Visa, MasterCard and major banks agreed to pay retailers at least $6billion to settle a long-running lawsuit, which alleged that the card issuers conspired to fix the fees that stores pay to accept credit cards.

The pact, which lawyers involved in the case are calling the largest antitrust settlement in U.S. history, is seen as a major victory for merchants who have long complained about the billions of dollars in so-called 'swipe' or 'interchange' fees they pay to banks for each purchase made using plastic.

Noah Hanft, general counsel for MasterCard, said the company believed its interests were 'best served by an amicable resolution' of the case.

Visa Chief Executive Officer Joseph Saunders said the settlement was in the best interest of all parties and did not expect the settlement to impact its current guidance.

 

Thus, crisis communications of credit cards brands is always about reassuring and encouraging the public opinion in order to comfort their leadership in this market.

 

Sources : http://www.laposte.fr/lehub/01-Orange-Carrefour-American

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/business/18cards.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2173452/Visa-Mastercard-pay-7-25billion-ripping-retailers-card-fees.html

MasterCard Social Media Strategy

MasterCard is harnessing social media data to yield insights that guide business decisions and shape product development.

Two or three years ago, Mastercard didn't really have much of a social media strategy. Today, the brand has a lot of followers on its main Twitter account and several other accounts for different topics and services. A big part of this process means making sure its employees are all digitaly savvy.
Today, MasterCard is arguable one of the most successful financial companies to engage in social channels. In fact, if The Financial Brand included pauments companies in the Social Media Power 100 rankings. MasterCard would sit alone a top the list as the world's most successful institution using social channels.

MasterCard lists a number of benefits from its intensive immersion in social media.

Beyond the Insights that they say now inform their everyday business decisions, MasterCard uses social intelligence to shape ideation and product development, spark brand engagement and awareness, track brand performance and reputation as well as providing context around what consumers really want.


One example of MasterCard social media campaign:

PRICELESS SURPRISE – launched on January 2014

Objectives: To extend their 17-year-old "Priceless" campaign, and to show that people is the most important for the brand. In order to reach the new generation through this old campaign, MasterCard focuses on capitalizing surprises, emotions, and connections.
Descriptive: The campaign featuring Timberlake launched during the Grammy Awards earlier this year, and saw the singer meet a fan at her home. While the commercial was released on national television, MasterCard set a team to track "Appropriate Time Marketing" instead of "Real Time Marketing." 

Social media interaction following the commercial helped the "#PricelessSurprise" campaign launch effectively. The "#PricelessSurprise" also arrived in the United Kingdom during the country's BRIT Awards featuring singer and producer Pharrell.

Targeted Groups:  Young people

Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

 

 

• MasterCard Facebook Page – Over 4.8 million ‘Likes"

• MasterCard YouTube Channel – 313,944 video views and 547 subscribers

• Twitter @MasterCardNews – 17,171 followers, 8,172 tweets, following 2,331 users

 

Source : http://thefinancialbrand.com/29591/mastercard-social-media-conversation-shapes-business-strategy/

http://pricelesssurprises.com/

VISA Social Media Strategy

Visa was an early adopter for both mobile and social media. The company began to work on its PayWave mobile-payment technology way back in 2007. It has had a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter since early 2009 and 2010, respectively.

 

For VISA, social media strategy is about behaviour and is not only a question of preferred platform. It means figuring out how consumers will behave under certain circumstances and base the digital marketing strategy on that.

Visa was an early adopter for both mobile and social media. The company began to work on its PayWave mobile-payment technology way back in 2007. It has had a social media presence on Facebook and Twitter since early 2009 and 2010, respectively.

Thus, VISA thinks that it should focus on what is already working out well. Therefore Visa focuses on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter as well as Pinterest.


One example of VISA social media campaign:

GO WORLD – launched in 2012

Objectives: The campaign is not about Visa being one the sponsors, but about the athletes, their hard work and best moments of the games. The ads don’t promote a specific product. Gets fans to be involved in the world wide event by cheering on the athletes.

Descriptive: Go World encourages consumer to cheer via social media to inspire Team Visa athletes at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Targeted Groups: Everybody

Campaign Platform: Visa created a Facebook Cheer App where fans can see relevant information about the athletes that they like based on their likes and preferences, offering a personalized user experience. 1,9 million fan “Likes” on Visa’s Facebook page. 

The campaign has been related on Twitter. On Youtube, 2,5 million views of VISA’s Go World commercials, behind the scenes athletes content and consumer-generated cheer videos.

 

• VISA Facebook Page – Over 17 million ‘Likes’
• VISA YouTube Channel – 24 951 subscribers
• Twitter @Visa - 235K followers, 12,4 K tweets

 

 

Source: http://digiday.com/brands/visas-social-olympics-follows-behaviors-not-platforms/

http://www.google.fr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDMQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fusa.visa.com%2Fdownload%2Fcorporate%2F_media%2Folympic-games-media-kit%2Fgo-world-fact-sheet.pdf&ei=bCF8VPnJH8Xdati3gLAJ&usg=AFQjCNFQNqFaa9Sc0jppwtAnccLyfgFuKA&sig2=DnkPc5jcZlNNHPiuxdZ9aA

American Express Social Media Strategy

 

American Express uses the traditional communication channels as well as social media.
However, in the recent years the company has shifted its focus to social media in order to engage their customers and focus more on youth centric activities.

 

American Express is doing a lot to shed its image as the card for the elite.

In recent years Amex has worked with Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, video game companies and other new partners to win the favour of young adults. 

American Express is also paving its way into the mobile space.They have also given the opportunity to young talents to contribute to social causes.

It joined the social scene in 2009. American Express first made its appearance on Twitter with the @AskAmex handle, focused on servicing Cardmember and merchant questions and needs. @AmericanExpress and the official American Express Facebook Page came soon after.

 
American Express has built its strategy on service, and it continues to improve its implementation by taking in user feedback. They spent a great deal of time listening to the community. The community interests and feedback defines their strategy.

 

One example of American Express social media campaign:

UNSTAGGED – launched the 5^th August 2010

 

Objectives: Bringing both the in-concert and at-home viewing experiences to entirely new heights and build Customer Engagement.

 

Target Groups: Cardmembers and Music Enthousiastes

Campaign Platform: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube

Description: “Unstagged : An original series from American Express” , features some of the music industry’s most breakthrough artists playing at landmark venues across the world.

Tap some of the most influential filmmakers  to direct live-streams, and use digital and social media to connect the online to the live shows in unexpected ways. The Series is scheduled to also feature a variety of surprise musical guest performances along the way. Each of the concert performances will be live-streamed for both Cardmembers and music enthusiasts through the artists’ dedicated VEVO page on Youtube.

This new partnership with VEVO and Youtube celebrates the marriage of music and social media. The aim is to demonstrate the exceptional access that American Express provides to Cardmembers and music lovers across the world.

 

 

•  AMEX Facebook Page – Over 5 million Likes
• AMEX YouTube Channel – 47 502 subscribers
• Twitter @AmericanExpress – 770 k followers, 32,5 k tweets

 

Source : http://fr.slideshare.net/monu1503/american-express-social-media-campaigns

http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2010/unstaged.aspx

New trends and actors in the payment methods' environment

Nowadays, payment methods are increasingly evolving. In fact, new payment ways are emerging, bringing with them new actors but brands like Visa, MasterCard and American Express may be overshadowed and only become payment method supports.

Peer 2 peer payments

This type of payment enables people to transfers money to one another.

In this field, surprising actors are emerging such as Social Media. What if people could pay instantaneously using social media?


This feature is now available on Twitter and now on Snapchat. Let’s focus on Snapchat. Snapchat, the pictures & videos sharing mobile application just released Snapcash (Nov 17^th ), a new feature enabling money transfers among users. Only Visa and MasterCard cardholders will be able to make transfers.

As suggested, in this case, banking cards companies are just supports and not the main actors of this (r)evolution anymore.

Payment in supermarkets

Supermarkets are now developing their own payment applications. These applications would enables to pay more quickly without using credit cards. Let us take the example of Auchan.

The French supermarket is setting a payment application called Flash’NPay that will be launched in 2015. After having registered its banking information, in order to pay, users will have to flash a QR code, enter its confidential code and validate the payment. Other hypermarkets like Leclerc also plan to release their own payment application.

Here again, the 3 brands will only be support.

Apple pay

As discussed on a previous article, Apple has recently released a feature enabling people to pay using their Iphones. Here, we will only focus on the banking cards role.

To make this new feature, Apple made a partnership with Visa, MasterCard and Amex. For those 3 brands, this is good news because they are put forward and improve their brand image by being seen as at the cutting edge of the technology.

However, Apple is rather appearing as a new concurrent because not only will Apple integrate their process but it will “nibble” a part of their revenues. In fact, when people pay with banking cards, cards issuers got a commission on the transaction. Now, with the Apple Pay, the 3 companies will have to share their revenues with Apple, Apple will collect fees from them.

These 3 examples show us a new trend on payments. Payment cards usage will decline in favor of mobile payment using apps. As a consequence, banking cards companies are moving from main actors to payment method supports. Even worse, they will have to share the pie with their concurrent. What will be  the next step? A coalition between MasterCard, Visa and American Express? Or a slow decline of these 3 brands? 

Sources:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-23/apple-pay-partners-with-american-express-visa-card-networks

http://blog.snapchat.com/post/102895720555/introducing-snapcash

http://paiementmobile.com/

Going beyond credit cards: sponsorships and other services

The banking industry is known for its cold and sometimes unsexy brand image. In order to shatter this kind of brand image, Visa, Mastercard and American Express decides to promote new activities and to set up surprising sponsorships.

Visa & Sport 

Unlike its concurents, the brand decided to focus on on particuliar domain

“Visa is everywhere you want to be”
In fact, the company tried to have a closer to its clients brand image.
To do so, Visa strategically focused its sponsorships and partnership actions in sport.

Since 1986, Visa has sponsored the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Visa has also been one the FIFA World Cup sponsor since 2007 and until at least 2022. It enables the firm to be better exposed while sponsoring the world’s most followed sport. Besides, it also means that Visa has marketing rights relating to the two largest sporting events (the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) 

MasterCard sponsors several sectors

Contrary to Visa, Mastercard has more diverse partnerships. Indeed the brand is present in sport, but also in fashion, and music.

Sport

MasterCard has been the official sponsor of the UEFA European Championships in 2008. The brand is also very present in the Golf field. Indeed, it is the initiative of several golf tournaments such as the MasterCard Open (from 2000 to 2004). Finally, Mastercard is also an official sponsor of the Major Baseball League.

Music

The brand distinguishes itself by being present in the entertainment domain. MasterCard is the main sponsor of the Brits Awards, which are the British Grammy Award equivalent.

Fashion

MasterCard is also sponsoring fashion events to improve its image. Sponsored events includes Fashion Rocks, MasterCard Luxury Week Hong Kong, Singapore Fashion Festival and Australian Fashion Week.

American Express gains exposure by supporting a lot of events

Just like MasterCard, Amex chose to have a presence in several domains including sport, music and press.

Sport

Amex is the main sponsor of both the NBA and the US open tennis tournament. Here the goal is to have a broader presence but also to offer its cardholder specific advantages. In fact, for the US open, Amex created “The US Open American Express® Fan Experience “. In this place, cardholder can for instance, play tennis and benefit from free swing analyses from tennis pros.

Music

Similarly, in 2010, Amex created Unstaged concert series in partnership with VEVO and YouTube available of its cardholders and music lovers.

According to the Sports and Entertainment Access Strategy American Express Vice President  “This new partnership with VEVO and YouTube not only celebrates the marriage of music and social media, but also demonstrates the exceptional access that American Express provides to Cardmembers and music lovers across the world,"

The concerts are broadcasted in live-streaming and enables interaction with the audience.

In fact, the audience can control its viewing experience by selecting one of the different cameras.

Finally, the artists can interact with the audience. During the Arcade fire concert, as the band was playing a song of their album called “The suburbs”, the audience submitted pictures of their own suburbs for them to be displayed on stage.

The concerts are broadcasted in live-streaming and enables interaction with the audience. In fact, the audience can control its viewing experience by selecting one of the different cameras.

Finally, the artists can interact with the audience. During the Arcade fire concert, as the band was playing a song of their album called “The suburbs”, the audience submitted pictures of their own suburbs for them to be displayed on stage.

Press

True its clients care commitment, Amex set up a press magazine called the “Centurion Magazine”. This magazine is dedicated to it super premium clients, the Centurion Card members. Focused on luxury, it covers subjects such as travel, culture, fashion and jewellery, art and gourmet trends. According to the brand, the Centurion Magazine is “the encyclopedia of luxury."

All in all, these 3 brands set up partnerships in order to improve their brand image. These actions help them being closer to their customers and also reaching other ones . 

We can also notice that Visa, MasterCard and American Express all positioned themselves in the sport area. By sponsoring these type of events, the 3 brands want people to  associate sport values to theirs. As a consequence, now they can be viewed as more trustful , fair and espaecially human brands




Sourceshttp://adage.com/article/news/american-express-renews-corporate-sponsorship-deal-nba/244042/http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6029533/amex-taps-maroon-5-for-live-streamed-concert-teams-with-itunes-radiohttps://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=amex-sponsorshiphttp://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2010/unstaged.aspxhttp://www.optimy.com/football-sponsorship-fifa-extends-sponsorship-visa/http://usa.visa.com/download/corporate/_media/fifa-media-kit/Sponsorship-Portfolio-Overview.pdfhttp://www.mastercard.com/us/company/en/whatwedo/current_sponsorships.html