Taurus Card Issuance – Optimizing card issuance with flexible solutions

Q: The banking industry is going through a digital transformation process, fueled by the widespread use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. How does this change the demands of banks and financial institutions, especially regarding personalization issues?
Alain Faburel: New tools and solutions come with an increasing demand to have immediate access to services; the old fashioned way of delivering a card to a cardholder is well behind us. Legacy card personalization systems require time to deliver, neither favoring the direct customer relationship nor user experience. New personalization solutions include personalization in the branches on the spot or on demand.

Q: How does Taurus Card Issuance work?
Alain Faburel: Taurus is a full set of issuance services that include Instant Issuance and Distributed Issuance. When a customer opens up an account and is offered a credit or debit card, Taurus Instant Issuance will take control of the issuance process from request to the financial institution’s Card Management System to the physical and logical personalization. Each card is then personalized one by one and immediately delivered to the customer.

Taurus Distributed Issuance is made for financial institutions that want to personalize the cards directly in their branches in batch mode. This process requires the preparation of data in advance, remotely in a Safran Identity & Security Data Center, as well as secure file transfer to the local branch that will handle the card personalization.

Q: What are the advantages of using Taurus Card Issuance – especially for banks and also for their customers?
Alain Faburel: There are many advantages – for the banks and their final customers. The first is the direct relationship between the bank and the customer at the very moment the card is delivered. Many messages can be passed and additional services can be proposed to the customer. The other major interest for the bank is the efficiency in delivering the card. Immediate delivery makes the customer able to use it right away without putting up with a long delivery time, mostly due to logistics. Last but not least, Taurus Instant and Distributed Issuance cut the cost of distribution and call center services in case the card is not received.

Q: If customers can personalize and issue cards in such a flexible way, how could this push their business models or reinforce the business-consumer relationship?
Alain Faburel: Even if the primary function of a card is payment, it is also a marketing tool in a full set of services generally including several offers. The moment the card is delivered in person to the customer, a dedicated relationship begins, which is much more efficient for developing trustable commercial relations than just receiving a card in your mailbox. After receiving the card directly and personally, the card is immediately used and thus increases card usage rates, staying top-of-the-wallet.

Q: You talked about maximum convenience when it comes to the Taurus Issuance solution. Does this also include maximum security?
Alain Faburel: When it comes to payment card personalization, any kind of security compromise is out of the question. Safran personalizes millions and millions of banking cards in many countries and for many customers each year. The security of our solutions and infrastructure are an integral part of our DNA. Our Taurus Instant and Distributed Solutions are compliant with the latest security requirements and hosted in our data centers, which are all certified by the appropriate and most renowned global certification authorities.