Popular B of A key chain cards to hit regional market in fall
You run through Petco, your dog tugging on his leash as you push a cart with
40 pounds of food, two bags of bacon treats and a toy the dog wants to steal.
You get to the cash register. Fumble through your wallet. Where is that credit
card?
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Or: You get to the register, reach for your keys, and simply swipe the mini-card attached to the chain. In seconds, you’re out the door.
That, says Bank of America, is what Fleet customers will soon be able to do. As Fleet branches throughout the Northeast switch over to Bank of America over the coming months – in Rhode Island it’s expected to happen in November – customers with Fleet credit and debit cards will get new mini-cards in the mail along with regular-sized Bank of America cards.
First offered to Bank of America credit-card customers in October 2002, and now carried by more than 22 million people, the mini-Visa cards measure 1.5 by 2.5 inches, about half the size of a regular Visa, but shaped like a credit card – not like, say, Petco’s or Stop & Shop’s long, narrow key chain cards. They have magnetic strips with all the information that’s on regular cards, the customer’s name, and a signature strip.
Bank of America customers who have them, said Erin De Avila, marketing product manager for the mini-cards, love the convenience of them.
“People like the fact that the card is always with them,” she said. Mini-cards are particularly popular at convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and big, warehouse-type stores, De Avila said. But because they work at any swipe terminal – or swipe ATM – they can be used almost everywhere that credit or debit cards are accepted.
And customers do use them, a lot. Mini-card holders spend about 2 percent to 3 percent more than those with regular-size Visas, De Avila said.
“They tend to use their accounts more often,” she said. Despite some customers’ concern about security, however, Bank of America has not noticed any increase in fraud, De Avila said. The mini-cards have all the same security features as regular cards, she noted, though “we would expect our customers to always use care and caution when using any of their financial tools.”
Bank of America is the only bank in the United States so far offering mini-cards, though Discover also has a key chain-size product, Discover2Go. MasterCard launched mini-cards in Mexico a year ago and got an enthusiastic customer reception; the SideCard is still not offered by any American bank, but it’s now issued in a dozen countries, and MasterCard is reportedly talking with several U.S. banks about a launch here.
Bank of America credits its mini-cards to Jamily Pentz, a bank associate who submitted her idea through the company’s innovation Web site.
“I was at the store one day and thought how much more convenient it would be to have my credit card on my key chain,” Pentz said in a news release. The innovation Web site manager immediately contacted her and asked her to help develop the proposed card.
Pentz, who is in her 20s, has managed the product from the start.
