Football affinity cards triumph at The Card Awards
Two football-related affinity cards were among the winners at The Card Awards in London. In addition, Co-operative Bank, Bank of America and HSBC all performed strongly.
Bank of America won in four categories for highly customer focused initiatives; a Customer Relationship Management programme personalising Bank of America’s communications with their football affinity credit cardholders.
Another football related project won Best Technology Initiative of the Year for the contactless, EMV prepaid Manchester City FC stadium card; their co-branded credit card with bmi won Best Benefits Programme.
The Co-operative Bank demonstrated its deep-rooted approach to customer social responsibility winning the Corporate Social Responsibility category for their ‘Customers Who Care’ programme and a trophy for Best Charity Card with The Woodland Trust.
Peter Ayliffe, the president and CEO of Visa Europe, was named Industry Personaility of the Year at the payment card industry awards, which acknowledged customer service, excellence and innovation in the UK and Ireland card industry.
The Awards, hosted by John Humphrys at Battersea Evolution in London, attracted over 1,300 guests including many of the industry’s leading figures and benefited Mencap through a charity raffle and auction.
Many of the winners and finalists demonstrated examples of responsible lending, improving the way businesses manage cost control and payment methods, support for charities and other socially responsible causes and products for niche markets.
Best Online Initiative was awarded to MBNA Connect, a computer desktop alert system which puts the customer in control of their credit card account helping reduce fraud and over-spending.
M&S Money part of HSBC won Best Co-brand or Affinity Programme for their ongoing retail card activity with Marks & Spencer. HSBC also won a trophy alongside John Lewis Partnership for Best Achievement in Customer Service. The merchant services side of HSBC won for Best Anti-Fraud Development with a programme which monitors and identifies fraudulent refunds processed by staff at the bank’s retail merchant customers.
Nationwide Building Society celebrated the second year of winning Most Responsible Credit Card Lending Practices after launching their ‘Trust Us, Trust You’ programme and investing in various financial education projects. Barclaycard was awarded Best Industry Innovation for their mobile payments trial using a mobile phone to make contactless payments.
The Royal Bank of Scotland, who won an award with PayPal for the Best Prepaid Card, also took the trophy for Best Business Card Programme for the onecard product which allows SMEs to analyse transactions and gain greater control over their business expenses.
Two other credit card issuers made an appearance on the winners roster this year with Santander Cards securing Best New Credit Card Product for their no-fees Abbey Zero card and Best Credit Card Marketing Campaign was given to HBOS Ireland for marketing of the Pink Card in the Republic of Ireland.
Two of the winners from the prepaid card sector are issued by Newcastle Building Society – the Tuxedo Prepaid Card and eccount and White Eagle Prepaid Card Migrant Program. The baked bean design on the Sainsbury’s Meal Ticket captured the judges’ imagination for the Best Card Design, which allows parents to load money on a prepaid card for their student children to spend in Sainsbury’s stores.
The full list of award winners is as follows:
Best New Credit Card Product of the Year – Santander Cards
Best New Prepaid Card Product of the Year – PayPal and The Royal Bank of Scotland
Best Card Design of the Year – Sainsbury’s
Best Credit Card Marketing Campaign of the Year – HBOS Ireland
Best Prepaid Card Marketing Campaign of the Year – Tuxedo Money Solutions and
Newcastle Building Society
Best Card CRM Strategy – Bank of America
Best Co-branded or Affinity Credit Card Programme – Marks & Spencer and Marks &
Spencer Money
Best Charity Credit Card Programme – The Woodland Trust and The Co-operative
Bank
Best Business Card Programme – The Royal Bank of Scotland
Best Card Benefits Programme of the Year – bmi and Bank of America
Best Card Cross-selling Programme of the Year – White Eagle (Europe) Plc
Best Corporate Social Responsibility Programme of the Year – The Co-operative Bank
Best Online Initiative – Bank of America
Best Security or Anti-Fraud Development – HSBC Merchant Services
Best Technology Initiative of the Year – Manchester City Football Club and Bank of
America
Best Achievement in Customer Service – John Lewis Partnership and HSBC
Best Industry Innovation of the Year – Barclaycard
Most Responsible Credit Card Lending Practices – Nationwide Building Society
Industry Personality of the Year – Peter Ayliffe
The independent judging panel of industry experts, chaired by Moneyfacts Group Chairman, John Woods, carefully selected winners from a host of payment card companies and partner organisations who entered. In each case they looked for evidence of best practice and innovation in each of the individual categories. The Card Awards winners were all praised for their achievements in the industry and for their work improving the quality of the customer
experience.
Martin Fielding, CEO of Card Partnerships (organisers of The Card Awards) comments: “With the turmoil we have seen in the financial world over the last year, it is precisely at such times that we all need to recognise and reward effort and excellence in providing the consumer with a range of payment products and services which will be fundamental to leading the economy out of the situation in which we now find ourselves.
“The consumer deserves the best that we have to offer and The Card Awards contributes to that by recognising the best practices and innovations in the market today.”
The Card Awards were organised by Card Partnerships with backing from prime sponsor TSYS.
Other sponsors include AEGON Direct Marketing Services Europe, American Express, Assurant Solutions, Cardif Pinnacle, Citymain Administrators, Domestic & General, ea Consulting Group, Fair Isaac, FirstAssist Insurance Services, First Data, Ingenico, LSG, Marsh ConsumerConnexions, MasterCard, Metavante Technologies, Steria, Visa, WhiteConcierge and White Eagle (Europe) Plc.
The entry process for The Card Awards 2010 will be launched later this year in July 2009.
For more information visit www.thecardawards.com