Capital One, one of the top ten US banks by
assets, has launched a “barometer” to measure how much credit card
holders use their rewards.
The Capital One Rewards Barometer will be
published quarterly and is a survey to asses customers’ credit card
reward redemption.
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In its first such survey, Capital One found
that over a fifth of US credit card holders (22%) were satisfied
with their rewards programme.
But the survey also revealed that 57% of the
US credit card holders did not use their rewards in the last
quarter.
A third of the 1,045 credit card holders who
did not redeem their rewards (28%) said that they had difficulty in
obtaining it, while 27% found their rewards unappealing.
A fifth of respondents (19%) found the lack of
flexibility in the redemption of rewards poor or fair.
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By GlobalDataUS banks are ditching credit card rewards
programmes
The launch of the barometer comes at a time when US banks have
begun to ditch their credit card rewards programmes on the back of
the Durbin Act.
If the Durbin Amendment contained
in the Dodd-Frank Reform Act passes unamended, it would slash by
around 70% the fee banks can charge merchants for debit card
transactions to a maximum of $0.12.
In November, a quarterly published credit data
from credit agency TransUnion reported that around 62 million
people now have an active card in the US, compared with 70 million
a year ago.
At the end of March, the third-largest US bank by deposits,
Wells Fargo, announced the end of its debit
card rewards programme and combined credit and debit loyalty
programme for new customers at former Wachovia branches and from
mid-April on at Wells Fargo branches.
JPMorgan Chase and SunTrust, the
second- and 10th-largest US banks by deposits, respectively, have
already said that they could not afford to offer a debit rewards
programme if the amendment is approved.
Atlanta-headquartered SunTrust
notified customers it would axe its SunTrust Rewards programme for
current accounts from 15 April. SunTrust customers have been told
to redeem their accrued loyalty points by the end of the year.
Achieving
that critical balance between a viable revenue level and a
satisfied customer base is about to get much more difficult for
US banks, who are introducing new fees, ending rewards programmes
and substituting new perks in one of the most frenetic periods of
product change in recent history.
