Stored Card Research Articles

The evolving moral economy of indebtedness in Chile: resignifying credit and debt in the oldest neoliberal society

Credit is ubiquitous in the life of Chilean households, the oldest neoliberal society. It is a key feature in the budgeting, shopping, and consuming practices of families. Consequently, to be indebted is a normal expectation in Chile. Families engage with the ‘necessary evil’ of credit in different ways, representing a massive, regular use of credit as short, medium and long-term leverage tools, with store cards being the main source of credit for lower and moderate income families in general. Moral obligations together with conventional and unconventional financial knowledge accompany the everyday situated economic practices of families. Addressing both the normalisation and the moralisation of credit, I attempt to make the case for the ongoing resignification of credit and debt and the evolving moral assessments of indebtedness, focusing on moderate and low-income households, namely those who embrace credit during recent decades. This article contributes to the discussion about the meaning of debt, to understand the financialisation of everyday life by looking at situated economic practices, and to recognise the social, moral and relational foundations of the economic practices. From the coming of the expansion of credit, households have learnt to deal with economic rationalities and internal and external moral judgements in order to justify their use of credit. Together with structural factors, this develops indebtedness assessments from detachment to naturalisation, placing credit and debt in the centre of ‘decent life’ expectations.

Social Media Sentiment Analysis: Online versus ‘Brick and Mortar’ Retailers in South Africa

ABSTRACT This study provides an analysis of consumers sentiment regarding online and ‘brick and mortar’ retailers in South Africa. The research provides insight into consumer online conversation by examining views as expressed about retailers from 15417 mentions on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The results indicate that customer service, shopping portals, vouchers/coupons, stock availability, deliveries, and jobs were the top issues discussed about online retailers. Brick and mortar retailers, however, showed conversational the themes of store cards, vouchers, customer service, jobs/staff, stock availability, and in-store experience. As eRetailing grows in momentum in Africa, this study provides a foundation for understanding consumer sentiment and comparing the different retail formats.

Fibre analysis to prevent cloning of credit cards

According to the report released by Federal Trade Commission of US government on 4th February 2021, number of credit card frauds has been increased by 107% from first quarter of 2019 to fourth quarter of 2020. A common method of counterfeiting is card cloning, that is achieved by copying card ID and other information from the magnetic stripe of a genuine card using a skimming device and writing it on a duplicate card. This paper presents a unique method to prevent card cloning, which does not store card ID on a magnetic stripe or chip of the card, instead, the ID is generated from the card itself using the location coordinates and orientation of the randomly spread fibres. Sensitive information is also stored in the card using the location and size of these fibres.

An Analytical Review of Existing Supermarket Billing Systems

Retail shops and stores form part of the nation’s business sector involved in selling and providing several goods and services. The main objective was to study and analyse existing supermarket billing systems and possibly identify their weaknesses and strengths. This will enable us to generate an RFID billing system that is unique and even more advantageous than the existing systems. The methodology used was qualitative involving hard and soft document reviews and observational experiments. Findings revealed that there are several billing systems which include the manual price tag system where a mini-computer (calculator) is used to sum up the total bill per customer at a time, the barcode reader system, the smart chart with store cards, and the ‘smart shopping cart. It was noted that these have the advantage of giving confidence all the items are counted, paid for, save time and are cheap to use. However, they are also associated with several weaknesses like long waiting time (queues), the systems require a lot of human effort to read the barcodes which is not efficient, barcode systems sometimes fail to read, possible human errors while entering information, possible cheating through wrongly-fed information and the desynchronization effects because of the unreliable network. This was an awareness drive about the existing supermarket billing systems in order to enhance further studies on better ones

Cost-benefit associations in consumer inventory problem with uncertain benefit

Newsvendor problems always describe a situation in which the vendor needs to predict the demand by a buyer when a constant unit profit is predetermined. However, sometimes, the vendor can effectively affect the demand as well as the unit profit, that is, when he is also the buyer simultaneously. Should he purchase more or less in advance when both the demand and unit benefit are uncertain? In this paper, we study how the vendor/buyer (consumer hereafter) would make this inventory decision when the unit profit is uncertain. We first analyze the evaluating process of consumers by conducting a mathematical model to contribute to the understanding of how the cost-benefit association affects consumer inventory decisions. Consumers would experience an immediate pain of payment (cost) at the order time, which is associated to thoughts of the uncertain pleasure (benefit) such payment may provide at the consumption time. The result shows the cost-benefit association might encourage consumers to either over- or underestimate the pain of paying and thereby take economically sub-optimal decisions. Based on this finding, we conduct three laboratory experiments to analyze the parameters in our model. Contrary to the existing literature, we find that the demand uncertainty may enhance consumer inventory decisions. Specifically, when the benefit uncertainty is really high, a strong cost-to-benefit link caused by the small probability of a great outcome would prevail against a weak benefit-to-cost link, leading to more deviation from the theoretical optimal quantity. Interestingly, we also show that changes to the benefits can lead to more deviation in order quantity, that is, a direct effect of benefit and an indirect impact on demand would jointly make changes to the benefits more effective than changes to the cost. Our finding has important implications on how firms should set prices and inventories of seasonal goods and how much money should invest in promoting pre-purchase behaviors (e.g., store cards).

Cryptographically-Generated Virtual Credit Card Number for Secure Card-Not-Present Transactions

Card-Not-Present (CNP) transactions taking place remotely over the Internet are becoming more prevalent. Cardholder authentication should be provided to prevent the CNP fraud resulting from the theft of stored credit card numbers. To address the security problems associated with CNP transactions, the use of a virtual card number derived from the transaction details for the payment has been proposed, instead of the real card number. Since all of the virtual card number schemes proposed so far are based on a password shared between the cardholder and card issuer, transaction disputes due to the malicious behavior of one of the parties involved in the transaction cannot be resolved. In this paper, a new virtual card number scheme is proposed, which is associated with the cardholder’s public key for signature verification. It provides strong cardholder authentication and non-repudiation of the transaction without deploying a public-key infrastructure, so that the transaction dispute can be easily resolved. The proposed scheme is analyzed in terms of its security and usability, and compared with the previously proposed schemes.

A cryptographic study of tokenization systems

Payments through cards have become very popular in today's world. All businesses now have options to receive payments through this instrument; moreover, most organizations store card information of its customers in some way to enable easy payments in future. Credit card data are a very sensitive information, and theft of this data is a serious threat to any company. Any organization that stores credit card data needs to achieve payment card industry (PCI) compliance, which is an intricate process where the organization needs to demonstrate that the data it stores are safe. Recently, there has been a paradigm shift in treatment of the problem of storage of payment card information. In this new paradigm instead of the real credit card data a token is stored, this process is called tokenization. The token looks like the credit/debit card number, but ideally has no relation with the credit card number that it represents. This solution relieves the merchant from the burden of PCI compliance in several ways. Though tokenization systems are heavily in use, to our knowledge, a formal cryptographic study of this problem has not yet been done. In this paper, we initiate a study in this direction. We formally define the syntax of a tokenization system and several notions of security for such systems. Finally, we provide some constructions of tokenizers and analyze their security in light of our definitions.

Consumer indebtedness of public servants in South Africa: Evidence from the department of health in the North West province

The primary objective of this study was to determine the consumer debt level of public servants in the Department of Health in the North West Province, South Africa. The results of the study indicate that most public servants rely almost entirely on the public service remuneration to survive and for debt repayment. The results of the survey also indicate that 96% of public servants in the Department of Health in the North West Province are over-indebted. The respondents also perceived their income to be insufficient and thus resort to credit to maintain their required standard of living. The results also indicate that 63% of the respondents have a debt-income ratio above 20%. The reason for falling into debt is mostly due to lack of funds and insufficient income. The most common types of consumer debt found among the respondents included store cards (26%), followed by personal debt from banks (18%), while vehicle loan debt (37%) consumed the highest rand value of total debt among respondents. Personal loans from banks (21%) comprised the second highest debt value incurred by the respondents. It could be argued therefore that most public servants are over-indebted and could be trapped in a debt cycle if no additional income is provided or if they do not embark on some kind of personal financial management education

Self-control, financial literacy and consumer over-indebtedness

This paper examines the relationship between self-control, financial literacy and over-indebtedness on consumer credit debt among UK consumers. Lack of self-control and financial illiteracy are positively associated with non-payment of consumer credit and self-reported excessive financial burdens of debt. Consumers who exhibit self-control problems are shown to make greater use of quick-access but high cost credit items such as store cards and payday loans. We also find consumers with self-control problems are more likely to suffer income shocks, credit withdrawals and unforeseen expenses on durables, suggesting that lack of self-control increases exposure to a variety of risks. In most specifications we find a stronger role for lack of self-control than for financial illiteracy in explaining consumer over-indebtedness. We discuss the policy implications of these findings.

Self-Control, Financial Literacy and Consumer Over-Indebtedness

This paper examines the relationship between self-control, financial literacy and over-indebtedness on consumer credit debt among a sample of U.K. consumers using data from a household survey. Both lack of self-control and financial illiteracy are positively associated with non-payment of consumer credit and self-reported excessive financial burdens of debt. Consumers who exhibit self-control problems are shown to make greater use of quick-access but high cost credit items such as store cards and payday loans. We also find consumers with self-control problems are more likely to suffer income shocks, credit withdrawals and unforeseen expenses on durables, suggesting that lack of self-control increases exposure to a variety of risks. In most specifications we find a stronger role for lack of self-control than for financial illiteracy in explaining consumer over-indebtedness.

Consumers’ use of and satisfaction with store cards

Navorsing dui daarop dat die gebruik van kredietfasiliteite soos bank- en winkelkaarte by betaalpunte wereldwyd toeneem. Ongelukkig het dit tot 'n toename in slegte skuld bygedra wat ingrypende gevolge vir huishoudings en ekonomii?½ inhou. Sommige beweer dat sekere vorms van krediet, veral winkelkaarte, te maklik toegestaan word en dat verbruikers hierdie fasilitiete tot hulle eie nadeel misbruik. Hierdie navorsing is gegrond op 'n vermoede dat minder ervare verbruikers, byvoorbeeld die in Afrikalande wat eers in onlangse jare aan groot winkelsentra en verwante fasilitiete blootgestel is, gevaar kan loop om hierdie fasiliteite te misbruik omdat dit so geredelik aan hulle toegestaan word.'n Vergelyking is gedoen van twee verskillende groepe winkelkaarthouers se retrospektiewe evaluering van hulle koopgedrag asook hulle beheer oor kredietlimiete en gevolglike tevredenheid met winkelkaarte. Die navorsing was verkennend, beskrywend van aard. 'n Gestruktureerde vraelys is gebruik en data is gedurende Augustus 2006 ingesamel : 100 respondente uit Gabarone en Francistown in Botswana (steekproef B) en 167 respondente in Tshwane, RSA (steekproef RSA) is betrek deur middel van gerieflikheidsteekproefneming.Betekenisvolle verskille tussen die twee steekproewe hou meestal verband met hulle kredietstatus en onvermoe om betalings vol te hou. Meer as 80% van die minder ervare steekproef het die duurder betaal opsie gebruik, dit wil se betalings oor die maksimum betaaltermyn wat rente insluit, versprei omdat hulle gesukkel het om maandelikse paaiemente by te bring. Hoewel die meerderheid van beide steekproewe toegegee het dat stygings in maandelikse paaiemente aan impulsiewe aankope te wyte was, was dit nie vir die meer ervare steekproef 'n probleem nie. Die meerderheid van hulle het steeds die rentevrye ses maande betaalperiode benut. Beide steekproewe was tevrede met winkelkaarte en het aangedui dat hulle sonder huiwering weer die fasiliteit sou bekom indien hulle opnuut 'n keuse kon uitoefen. Albei steekproewe het aangedui dat hulle winkelkaarte as 'n betaalmiddel sal aanbeveel omdat dit gerieflik is om te gebruik, rentevrye krediet bied en handig is tydens krisistye. Resultate toon dat winkelkaartgebruikers dit moelik vind om van die fasiliteit afstand te doen as hulle daaraan gewoond is. Nadat kaartrekeninge afgelos is begin verbruikers die fasiliteite redelik gou weer gebruik wat bevestig dat dit moelik is om selfkontrole oor aankoopgedrag uit te oefen en dat kaarthouers vir hulleself streng reels behoort te stel om aankope te beheer. 'n Toename in die maandelikse paaiemente van beide steekproewe en die feit dat hulle erken dat impulsiewe aankope en swak beplanning die belangrikste redes is daarvoor, bevestig 'n feitlik onvermydelike gevolg van kaarteienaarskap. Winkelkaarte behoort dus met groter omsigtigheid toegestaan te word en kredietlimiete behoort gereeld gekontroleer te word om onverantwoordelike gebruik daarvan te voorkom. Minder ervare verbruikers is blykbaar geneig om te koop volgens hulle kredietlimiet omdat hulle dit as 'n mosie van vertroue in hulle vermoe om die paaiemente te betaal te beskou.Ongelukkig blyk die verbruikersperspektief, wat verbruikers as rasionele besluitnemers beskou wat inligting wat tot hulle beskikking gestel word gebruik, nie die aangewese benadering te bied om verbruikers in te lig en op te voed nie. Winkelkaarthouers se onkunde omtrent bykomende voordele wat winkelkaarte bied dui daarop dat verbruikers nie noodwendig ag slaan op die inligting wat vryelik in winkels, in brosjures en op die webtuistes beskikbaar gestel word nie. Ander perspektiewe behoort dus vir hierdie doel in toekomstige navorsing ondersoek te word.

The Impact of Regulatory Intervention in the UK Store Card Industry

The paper examines the impact of regulatory intervention on store card interest rates, for a panel of UK store cards. Panel data estimation methods are used in conjunction with intervention analysis so that the impact of the investigations on store card interest rates can be examined. Results suggest that there is a significant negative impact on store card interest rates. The impact of macroeconomic factors and credit card interest rates on store card interest rates are also taken into account, results indicating that store cards and credit cards should be considered as competing sources of credit.

Payment Card Data - Know Your Defense Options

With the advent of the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), protecting stored credit card numbers is no longer optional. Any company that stores, processes, or transmits credit card information - regardless of size or volume of transactions - must secure stored credit card data or face serious consequences for non-compliance, including fines, higher transaction fees, the loss of brand integrity, and erosion of market value. But while the PCI standard offers broad guidance - featuring rules on the proper use of firewalls, web application firewalls, computer access controls, antivirus software, and more - encryption requirements are proving to be among the most difficult for organizations to address. And to complicate the situation even further the compensating controls defined in PCI DSS 1.1 are not fully addressing the growing threat from data level attacks. This article will review different approaches to protect credit card data that can be combined to significantly strengthen an organization's security posture, while minimizing the cost and effort of PCI compliance.

Store cards: is it a matter of convenience or is the facility used to sustain lavish consumption?

AbstractStore cards are generally much easier to obtain than most other credit systems, and are therefore afforded less respect than, for example, bank credit cards. Many consumers who adopt store cards are not necessarily competent to manage the credit limits that are so generously approved. Overspending thus seems almost inevitable. Evidence to substantiate concerns about store card use will be useful to alert consumers about responsible use of store cards and will support the basic sentiments of consumerism, i.e. to enhance consumer education and to properly inform and protect consumers. The intention is to compare the most important reasons provided for the adoption of store cards and buyer behaviour, as well as satisfaction with store cards of two dissimilar groups of store cardholders, based on the premise that exposure to and experience with large shopping malls and related facilities would be influential. Store cardholders' control of credit limits and use of supplementary store card services are correlated with satisfaction with the commodity. The research is exploratory and descriptive in kind. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data during August to October 2006: 267 questionnaires were retrieved. A remarkable congruence in the reasons why store cards were acquired by the two samples was evident. Both valued the convenience of store card use and were impressed by the open‐ended revolving credit options. Additional incentives, however, seemed of limited importance. Noticeable differences between the samples are mostly related to the financial consequences of store card use. Impulsive buying and poor planning were blamed for a continual increase in store card installments. This coincides with Soman and Cheema's conclusion that less experienced consumers tend to optimize a credit limit as an indication of their future earnings potential. More experienced store cardholders seemed significantly more satisfied with the facility than their counterpart. Rapid reuse of store cards after settlement of accounts indicates difficulty to quit using the facility. This supports the notion that self‐control over spending is effortful. The consequent challenge to retailers would be to exercise greater caution with the approval of credit limits to encourage more responsible use of store credit accounts.

Modelling profitability using survival combination scores

The paper presents the first empirical investigation of the relationship between present value of net revenue from a revolving credit account and times to default and to second purchase. The analysis is based on the data for a store card which is used to buy ‘white’ durable goods in Germany. It is demonstrated that there exists a relationship between the above given measures. It appears that there is a scope for improving profit if an application for a store card is assessed by using a model which estimates the revenue and includes the survival probability of default and the survival probability of second purchase (a survival combination model) rather than merely a static probability of default predicted by a logistic regression.

Congruence between Positioning and Brand Advertising

ABSTRACT The lack of comprehensive strategic positioning models capable of being employed by managers and advertising executives has given the impetus for this research. This study deals with the actual process of managing the concept of positioning. Using multiple research methodology, a conceptual positioning framework that is the composite of two extant positioning frameworks is formulated. The framework is subsequently operationalized in plastic card organizations (i.e., credit card, charge card, store card, and debit card industries). From the findings, this article puts forward managerial guidelines and, in the process, reveals that plastic card organizations pursue two key positioning aims (profit and market share; profit and status) and, to an extent, “profit and cobranding.” The research also uncovers two main positioning objectives, namely, “functional” and “symbolic” employed by plastic card brands. Furthermore, the study finds that six card brands are managed within two broad life cycle stages (fortification and membership) while “deposition” and “fallow” are pursued by two card brands. “The Brand Name” strategy is the most popular positioning strategy utilized in the study setting. Discussion and managerial guidelines, conclusions, limitations, and recommendations for future research are also discussed.

Tesco leads the way in the loyalty program stakes

PurposeThe aim of the paper is to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.FindingsWhat would you think if you entered your local supermarket one Friday night and encounter a display of disposable nappies directly next to the four‐packs of lager? That someone had been sabotaging the store layout? The backroom staff had made an error? In fact, this was an intentional strategy carried out by UK supermarket giant Tesco, based on the findings from store card data that a large proportion of males purchased lager and nappies on a Friday evening when, presumably, their spouse was having an evening out.Practical implicationsThe paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.Originality/valueThe briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.

Assessing the usefulness of store card data in direct sales of financial services

The UK financial services market has expanded in recent years through the addition of several non-traditional players. We evaluate the extent to which this increased supply of services is best channelled through existing retail locations or whether products are better promoted and managed via direct marketing methods. Using a UK grocer/retailer's lifestyle customer database for an urban store and an out-of-centre location, we analyse a regional sample of customers who have received financial services mail-shots. The use of GIS and logistic regression enables the determination of the extent to which mail respondents have distinctive characteristics in terms of wealth, financial service ownership and proximity to store. Finally, we discuss the implications of our empirical study for in-store financial services support and draw some general conclusions based on our assessment of the usefulness of lifestyles data in such applications.

Fighting identity fraud

Increasingly, fraudsters ‘clone’ the identity of someone who has recently died by scouring the obituary columns and intercepting post. They use the mail of a recently deceased person to apply for products and services in their name. They may even steal important documents such as utility bills to assume false identities. This is a worrying trend that can result in great distress for someone who has been bereaved and who then receives a credit card bill or loan statement in the name of the person who has recently died, showing an unexpected bill of hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds. Sadly this is happening more and more, as criminals ‘steal’ the identity of the deceased and use it to apply for loans, and credit and store cards.

Positioning strategies and incidence of congruence of two UK store card brands

This study examines the activities and congruence of positioning strategies in the UK store card sector. Using a triangulation research methodology, the results confirm the prevalence of challenging and aggressive branding activities. The findings identify “Service”, “Value for money”, and “The Brand Name” as the most popular positioning strategies pursued by Marks & Spencer Card brand. In the case of Harrods Card brand, “Top of the range” and “The Brand Name” are the two dominant positioning strategies employed. The study further uncovers congruence between the two card brands' marketing “communications” efforts and consumers' “perceived” strategies. However, there is no congruence between managers' “presumed” strategies and the brands' marketing “communications” efforts. More specifically, although positioning activities in “communications” are successfully recognized by the target group, managers' positioning “presumptions/intentions” are not clearly transmitted in “communications”. Conclusions, managerial implications, limitations and future research directions are discussed.