In an announcement that was published on Digital Transactions’ website, Capital One has stopped their pilot of decoupled debit cards. The press release indicates that this was just a pilot test and nothing more.

The article goes on to say that the timing of stopping the program has nothing to do with the recent NACHA ruling that prevents aggregating transactions into one ACH.

This announcement does not come as a surprise. Many of us in the industry have believed that the business model on such a program was a tough case to make. That being said, it wouldn’t surprise me if we see them roll-out something eerily similar to a decoupled debit in the next year. HSBC is testing this concept too.

So what does this mean for your credit union? Probably not much, yet. Very few of the credit unions I have talked to have seen any attrition based on this product (although it was a pretty small pilot). Regardless of the impact of decoupled cards, rewards programs are still the best driver of activity, usage and cardholder retention.

The business case for rewards is proven and should be strongly considered. For more ideas on how to make a rewards program successful, see my previous post, Put Some Steam in Your Card Program.