Card issuers today face a payments landscape defined by choice and complexity. Consumers can pay with a tap, click or a glance — using digital wallets, buy now pay later and instant transfers. While these innovations have driven acquisition, they’ve also raised the stakes for engagement: signing up new cardholders is no longer enough.
Mastercard research, including interviews with issuers and a survey of 10,000 consumers, reveals a clear shift in priorities. Two or three years ago, the focus was on issuing as many cards as possible. Now, success means encouraging meaningful card usage and building lasting relationships. In fact, 60% of consumers expect card features and benefits to be tailored to their unique needs, making personalization a must-have.
An important piece to a larger puzzle, Mastercard estimates that bringing issuer portfolios to benchmark performance could unlock more than $1 trillion in global payment volume (GDV). Achieving this means moving beyond acquisition and embracing ongoing, data-driven portfolio optimization — where every cardholder is nurtured, every transaction is an opportunity and dormant accounts become engines of growth.
Dormant cards: The silent scourge
Aside from leaving significant revenue on the table, dormant portfolios prevent issuers from accessing the rocket fuel needed for long-term growth: Data-driven insights. Large portfolios are goldmines of consumer-permissioned intelligence, but only if cardholders are active and engaged. Without regular usage, issuers miss out on important signals and patterns that enable smarter personalization, targeted offers and ongoing optimization.
To address this, issuers must evolve beyond traditional ‘set-and-forget’ business models that over index on winning cardholders. The real value comes from nurturing their hard-won customers by embracing ‘always-on’, data driven, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered portfolio optimization.
That’s exactly what a bold breed of issuers are doing. By prioritizing activation and engagement in the critical first days and months of the cardholder lifecycle, these issuers are laying the foundation for long-term portfolio performance. In fact, those able to identify high-value segments, personalize communications and scale what works report triple-digit increases in activation rates and millions in incremental spend.
But these wins are only possible with the right intelligence.
Wanted: Hard intel
Issuers are keenly aware that they need to boost usage and have identified some key factors of what drives cardholder activity. Mastercard’s research shows that enhanced rewards, benefits and seamless digital experiences are the most important levers. For example, 41% of consumers said they’d push a secondary card with better rewards and benefits to top-of-wallet status. And 60% expect those features and benefits to be personalized to their unique needs. While issuers understand these drivers, many still lack the advanced capabilities needed to translate insights into targeted action.
To bridge this gap, robust, data-driven business intelligence is essential. By leveraging AI and advanced analytics, issuers can generate actionable, real-time insights to understand cardholders, tailor rewards and optimize digital experiences — critical steps for boosting activation and engagement early in the lifecycle, and for driving ongoing portfolio optimization.
Mastercard’s suite of portfolio optimization tools — including Portfolio Optimizer, Portfolio Advisor, Mastercard Intelligence Center and Cards Lab (all available via Mastercard Business Intelligence) — empower issuers to turn market signals into actionable ideas quickly and confidently. Positioned at the center of the payment ecosystem, Mastercard analyzes billions of anonymized transactions to uncover meaningful performance opportunities.
To ensure issuers achieve measurable results, Mastercard applies a structured approach that connects insight to action and enables continuous, always-on optimization:
- Target the most impactful opportunities for portfolio enhancement
- Create joint action plans with recommendations tailored to issuer goals
- Execute initiatives in partnership to drive conversion and engagement
- Measure impact to assess effectiveness and scale what works
This collaborative process helps issuers move beyond acquisition, prioritize early activation and engagement and build momentum toward benchmark portfolio performance.
Portfolio optimization in action
- In India, Mastercard partnered with a leading bank to boost debit card activation through personalized SMS, email and push notifications. By focusing on the crucial first 90 days of the cardholder lifecycle, the campaign delivered a 111% increase in Early Month on Book (EMOB) activation rates and a $9.75 million in incremental spend over three months.
- In Latin America, a leading bank partnered with Mastercard’s Performance Engine to drive credit card acquisition and usage. Following an analysis of demographics and transaction data to segment audiences, it used dynamic content and A/B testing to optimize personalized messaging. The EMOB campaign resulted in a 26% increase in email open rate and an average activation time of just eight days.
These examples demonstrate how early activation and engagement, powered by data-driven intelligence, can lay the groundwork for long-term portfolio growth. By continuously evaluating and refining campaign strategies, issuers can prevent dormancy and unlock new revenue opportunities.
Becoming best-in-class
There’s a substantial reward for issuers who embrace portfolio optimization, moving beyond acquisition and nurturing cardholders throughout their lifecycle. Internal Mastercard data has fully quantified the benefits throughout the cardholder lifecycle:
- Personalized offers can reduce acquisition costs by up to 50%.
- Every 1% increase in spend active rate could create an extra $100+ billion in GDV.
- Retention efforts, such as improving stored card details, can generate $35 billion or more in GDV for each percentage point increase.
Elevating portfolios to best-in-class levels — where continuous growth cycles, higher cardholder lifetime value and top-of-wallet status are the norm — could more than triple GDV.
Every transaction opens the door for issuers to build stronger relationships and improve portfolio performance. In a fast-changing payments landscape, time is of the essence. The lesson is clear: ongoing activation, engagement and optimization are not just strategies — they’re imperatives for those who want to lead, not follow.
