As the economy recovers, many high-value cardholders will examine their primary card issuers to see which ones have provided the best and worst levels of customer support and service. Credit card issuers cannot afford to leave to chance customer satisfaction and retention. J.D. Power and Associates' 2009 Credit Card Satisfaction Study has identified five specific drivers that card issuers need to pay close attention to in order to maximize the opportunities for growing share of spend among the cardholder population. Attendees will also hear how one major credit card issuer has addressed these drivers of customer satisfaction throughout the recession, some of the challenges encountered, and insights gained for moving forward.

This session will address the current regulatory landscape in the context of various card products and innovations, including the disparate treatment of certain similar card types and features as well as the legal foundation and framework for contactless and other no signature transactions.

Credit card direct mail volume has declined dramatically with the shift away from new customer acquisition, changing consumer channel usage, and a need to respond to thinner margins by embracing lower-cost alternative channels. In this session we will:

• Provide channel-specific insights on what is working and what isn't
• Offer learning on how to tap the growing power of social media
• Discuss the role of alternative channels for both acquisition and customer relationship management

How effective is your risk management program? In attempts to protect your customers, are you blocking transactions that should be approved? Do you know how you stack-up against your peer group relative to fraud loss ratio? This session provides best-practice steps to lessen the negative exposure of too much or not enough fraud protection while measuring the successes of your program and growing your transaction volume. You'll learn about the latest fraud trends, how to build a best-in-class fraud prevention program that will positively support your card program and more.

While the press has focused on issuer-directed constriction of consumer credit terms and reduced account origination during the recession, consumers have not reacted passively.  Data from Mercator’s Primary Data Series survey of 1,012 consumers show consumers flexing their wallets in favor of debit and other payment alternatives instead of their credit cards in order to better control household finances.  It is no longer a question of “will it happen?” but rather “how long will it last?”

Topics to be covered include:

• The long term trend toward debit growth
• Who has immediate ability to switch:  dual credit/debit cardholders
• Perceived permanence of the switch
• Drivers of switching/non-switching:  the power of rewards
• Implications for issuers during the recovery

This presentation will discuss the benefits of a comprehensive approach to debit; highlighting how using a single partner across signature/PIN/ATM and debit processing creates the opportunity for robust reports, scorecards and benchmarking data. This session will take a look at the evolution of debit from a card to access funds at bank ATMs to the primary form of payment for many Americans today. Presenters will share lessons learned and best practices in building a successful debit program on a comprehensive debit strategy.

The spending habits of consumers has drastically impacted payments strategy, and this is no different for that of the affluent, whose spending in the past decade has been especially influential in all consumer-related industries. This session will take a close look at the state of spending among this demographic as the country heads toward either a protracted recession, or a period of recovery, and how this will impact payments strategy.