Pre-pandemic, the US lagged behind the rest of the world in the adoption of contactless payments largely due to easily available substitutes. But as with so many things – COVID changed that – across all payment types and demographics. Today, more than three quarters of Americans use some form of digital payment – with the two most common being in-app and online. Plus, three quarters of iPhone users in the US have now enabled Apple Pay – a 25% increase in adoption since 2020.

To help financial institutions (FIs) capitalize on this momentum, deliver on increasing consumer expectations and drive top of wallet behavior, Entrust’s Senior VP and General Manager for Instant Issuance, Tony Ball, co-hosted a virtual panel with Jesal Meswani, Senior VP Digital Consumer Solutions with Mastercard, and Tomas Janitor, Head of Business and Innovation for RPC, member of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI). RPC is the card processor for RBI that spans eleven countries. The panelists discussed the reasons for offering a truly digital first cardholder experience, as well as how to create one.

Jesal shared the positive results Mastercard has seen with FIs as a result of building an integrated digital card program, including a 10% lift in transaction volume, an 8% increase in the transaction approval rate, and a 20-basis point reduction in fraud, among other compelling reasons. Then, Tony explained that FIs only have a 90-second to 5 minute onboarding window, making a great consumer experience critical to even being able to realize these benefits by avoiding application abandonment and securing top of wallet status.

Tony also outlined the different flavors of digital card solutions from manual provisioning to automated push provisioning to banking app payment enablement and shared the relative merits of each. While both automated push provisioning and in banking app payment enablement offer a more seamless cardholder experience than manual provisioning, in app payment enablement has the added advantage of keeping the FI in control of their own messaging, branding and communications vs. “disappearing”  into an xPay branded wallet (i.e., Apple Pay, Google Pay).

As the provider of Raiffeisen Bank International’s digital card solution, RaiPay, Tomas reinforced best practices and indicated that delivering a great cardholder experience can be a moving target. When RaiPay first came to market over three years ago, it was all about contactless NFC payments. And while this remains a core feature, RPC has since added customer self-care functionalities like transaction history and card details, along with more dynamic operations like disposable virtual cards, peer-to-peer payments and token control for subscriptions with much more to come.

See a demo below of the RaiPay digital card app powered by Entrust and listen to our distinguished panelists as they discuss creating the ideal digital first cardholder experience.

To learn more about how Entrust enables digital card programs, visit https://www.entrust.com/issuance-systems/products/software/entrust-digital-card-solution.