Two credit unions are using – and praising -- a new weapon in the plastic card security arms race.
Ondot Systems, based in San Jose, Calif., worked with $7 billion America First CU and $1.3 billion Arizona Federal Credit Union – to create the product, called Card Guard by the former and CardPower by the latter.
More than 3,100 of Arizona Federal members have downloaded CardPower, according to Senior Director of Digital Banking Eric Givens.
"In the month of October, there were 111,000 transactions that passed through card controls, with 1,100 of them blocked due to members' controls," Givens said. "Even if just 25% of those transactions were legitimately blocked due to misuse, with an average of about $90 per dispute in October, that equates to about $25,000 in fraud savings."
Not only can credit and/or debit cards be turned on and off, as with some cards, CardPower/Card Guard includes a number of different ways in which cardholders can define the way their cards are used, including: transaction alerts, map- and location-based features, and transaction limits.
"CardPower allows great flexibility in setting when a card can be used and when alerts are sent out," Givens said. "For example, our members can set their card so that it only works in Phoenix. It is easy to use and gives our members peace of mind."
Kent Ailes, VP of risk management at Phoenix's Arizona Federal, said CardPower is delivering return on investment and had almost reached its 12-month goal of member penetration within 30 days of rollout. He expected CardPower would break even after a year but due to the higher-than-expected member adoption, he now sees break-even sooner.
"We are seeing transaction counts from members who signed up for CardPower increase," Ailes said, "and that equates to top of wallet – they are pulling out our card first."
America First's members also like the product's control features.
"Card Guard gives our members control over where and when their cards can be used, said Brice Mindrum, mobile services manager for the Riverdale, Utah-based CU. "Our members will love the alerting function that happens in real time on every transaction."
Mindrum noted America First does not share statistical numbers publicly, so he could not reveal how many users Card Guard had, "But I will say we are very pleased with the growth of this product and we are excited to see where it goes in the future."
