CompoSecure: Issuers Adopt Metal Payment Cards to Attract Premium Customers

There is strong demand for metal payment cards as issuers work to attract and retain premium card customers, CompoSecure said Wednesday (Aug. 7).

The provider of metal payment cards, security and authentication solutions added several new programs involving its metal cards during the second quarter, CompoSecure President and CEO Jon Wilk said Wednesday during the company’s second-quarter 2024 earnings call.

“Card issuers maintained steady purchase volumes and drove strong customer acquisitions in the second quarter,” Wilk said. “This continues the trends we have seen throughout the year and has reaffirmed our belief in a strong and growing market for premium and metal payment cards.”

The latest metal card programs announced by CompoSecure customers include American Express White Gold, Wells Fargo-Expedia One Key+, Turkish Airlines Premier and Atlas, according to an earnings presentation released Wednesday.

“We continue to support our customers’ ability to offer highly attractive premium card programs,” Wilk said during the call.

He added later that these four card programs are just a select set of examples of some new programs.

“There are a good number more than that in any given quarter,” Wilk said.

Premium cards are a status symbol, tied to high credit lines and high-level rewards programs, and the move to contactless impacted the metal card sector in positive ways, Wilk told PYMNTS in an interview posted in April 2021.

CompoSecure said at the time that metal cards are a competitive differentiator for 58% of consumers, that roughly half of consumers said they would leave their bank for another if offered a metal payment card, and that getting metal cards into the hands of younger users may lead to long-lived relationships.

Wilk said in the interview that while metal cards started by targeting the affluent, high net worth space, they have since been embraced by the “mass affluent space.”

During the second quarter, CompoSecure also expanded its partnership with Fiserv to include the marketing and reselling of Arculus Authenticate, CompoSecure’s hardware-bound passkey authenticator, according to the presentation released Wednesday.

Wilk said during the call that the expanded partnership “enhances our ability to bring FIDO2 secure authentication to Fiserv’s extensive customer base of financial institutions and FinTechs” and “solidifies our joint commitment to add functionality to payment cards that improves the customer experience.”