Interview with Arroweye's CEO Render Dahiya, on EMV On-Demand open-source platform

Tell us about Arroweye Solutions

Arroweye Solutions, headquartered in Chicago, was founded in 1999 with a goal to make gifting more personal. Since then, we’ve grown to become a leading provider of customized payment cards in both the closed and open loop space. We’ve worked with some of the country’s largest retailers and prepaid, credit, and debit card programs in the financial and card services industry.

Our specialty is digital on-demand production, which means we can produce cards on an individualized basis. It’s a more flexible solution than traditional production models and provides our customers with unparalleled customization capabilities, unlimited choices in design, and a no inventory model that reduces program costs. Arroweye currently holds eight patents protecting our digital on-demand technology.

Tell us more about your Dual purpose Debit/ID Card

We’re noticing a trend towards banking the underbanked, and our partners at Praxell brought us in to support a special dual-purpose debit/ID card to serve the underbanked population in Oakland, California. We combined specialties with security specialist ABnote to produce a first-of-its-kind secure identification and banking solution. Each card requires a very high level of customization, including a photo ID and personal identification information, as well as debit account information. Our digital on-demand design and production technology provides the flexibility and accuracy in card imaging needed to maintain the program’s identification component and was critical in being able to integrate the security components necessary to ensure the cards are secure.

How does Data-Powered Card marketing technology help businesses?

Card issuers have access to vast amounts of customer data but traditional card production and marketing solutions don’t provide a platform to harness that information as part of a marketing program. Our CustomerConnect solution does. When combined with our flexible digital on-demand technology, CustomerConnect gives businesses the means to create highly personalized marketing campaigns that speak directly to their targets’ interests – and are proven to drive customer affinity and program lift. During the last 12 months, CustomerConnect has powered several new programs, including the dual purpose debit/ID card for the City of Oakland.

At Money2020 Arroweye introduced EMV On-Demand, tell us more about it? Will it be compatible to work across UK & US ? How does this On-Demand EMV open source help financial institutions? How does it help in marketing? Can you provide a simple example which shows a win-win situation for merchant, issuer, network, & consumers?

EMV is the global payment standard and the U.S. is adopting EMV to align with the world’s economy. Production is an integral piece of the transition puzzle and the cards we produce are compatible everywhere EMV chip cards are accepted.

The migration to EMV chip cards is filled with unknowns, but card issuers are making decisions right now that can impact their programs two years from now. An open-source, flexible solution like EMV On-Demand allows financial institutions to test card programs without committing to a platform that may not work for them in the long-term. EMV On-Demand helps control costs with a zero inventory model, without sacrificing flexibility in program design or marketing. And our digital on-demand technology allows issuers to continue incorporating customers’ unique preferences and dynamic rich content into individual card marketing campaigns while migrating their card programs to an EMV platform.

EMV significantly raises the cost of issuing a card. This could drive anyone in the payments or loyalty value chain who uses or works with cards to second guess issuing, investment, or the number of designs they will offer. An on-demand model allows all members of the chain to keep the same number of designs in place, as no up-front investment in inventory is required. This significantly reduces the economic burdens and EMV rollout can cause.

Since Arroweye is in the business of EMV what is your opinion on mobile payments? Will it pickup? Do you think it is the same as pulling a card?