Providing a payment card is one aspect; encouraging cardholders to utilize it is a different matter. Despite having a record number of cards in use – over 648 million credit card accounts exist in the United States alone, as reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York – activation continues to be a significant area of friction in banking and financial services.

The reasons are mundane: delayed mail, onboarding processes that confuse instead of assist, packaging that provides no call to action. The overall impact is economically important. The activation period – the days from card delivery to initial usage – is limited.

G+D is tackling this issue directly by broadening its Convego product lineup with new solutions and features aimed at bridging the delivery-to-activation gap: AI-supported autonomous address validation, NFC-enabled physical mailers, and instant pickup from kiosks. Each aims at a possible failure point in the process from production to initial transaction.

Every month, thousands of payment cards are sent back in the mail. Between 10-20 percent of returned mail results from incorrect addresses, like those mistakenly entered by the cardholder, while 60-75 percent of returns stem from addresses being undeliverable, based on G+D’s expertise. A card that does not show up cannot be activated. Address error is the first – and most preventable – failure in physical issuance, but it is consistently entrusted to later processes to identify.

Convego validAIgent moves this check to the beginning of the workflow. Employing agentic AI, the solution verifies address information prior to shipping, identifies potential undeliverables, and aligns corrections across CRM and personalization platforms.

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For mail that has previously been returned, it can actively reach out to cardholders through in-app messaging, verify a new address, and automatically initiate re-personalization and redelivery.

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Additional features comprise CASS-certified validation for American markets, smart address-correction recommendations, and analytics to highlight address-quality trends throughout the issuer's portfolio. Agentic Issuance elements enhance contemporary card issuance significantly.

The tangible outcome: reduced returns, decreased re-issuance expenses, and cards delivered to customers more quickly.

Physical delivery usually concludes with a payment card enclosed in an envelope along with a standard instruction booklet. There’s no cue, no engagement moment – merely a wish that the customer sees, reads, and responds. Convego Smart Package addresses this by incorporating a low-energy Bluetooth (BLE) tag within the card packaging.

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As the package approaches the recipient's mobile device, it activates a notification – either through SMS or the banking app – signaling its arrival and encouraging activation. The tag works on any device (iOS and Android), is protected by a unique ID, and is built for extended battery life.