Credit Cards and COVID-19: How the Pandemic Transformed the Credit Card Industry

Two years in, the coronavirus pandemic has caused tectonic shifts in the credit card industry that will have permanent effects on issuers, card networks, and all other firms involved in the space. Although the pandemic is ongoing, the anniversary of its declaration by the World Health Organization is an opportunity to look back, examine the many ways the industry has changed, and paint a picture of where credit cards are going and how firms should be positioning themselves in the space. The crisis has brought major changes to consumer preferences and behaviors, issuer strategies, payment technologies, and regulation, all of which must be reconciled for these firms to succeed in the years to come.

The volatile environment has affected the nature of earning top-of-wallet status, one of the main goals of any credit card. Winning top-of-wallet status sets up issuers to rack up consumer spending on a regular basis, a lucrative priority. But consumers’ shifting priorities and payment habits, alongside the development of other payment methods and technologies, have changed the top-of-wallet calculus permanently, forcing payments firms to reevaluate their strategies for targeting cardholder spending even as the pandemic stretches on.

Key questions discussed in this report:

• How have consumers’ payments preferences and behaviors changed because of the pandemic, and what do those changes mean for the credit card industry?
• How have credit card issuers bolstered and changed their portfolios to court consumer spending during the pandemic, and how will those changes continue to affect the industry?
• What new challenges, technologies, and regulations have popped up amid the pandemic, and what do they mean for credit cards in the years to come?

Companies Mentioned:

Affirm, Afterpay, Amazon, American Express, Apple, Bank of America, Block, Capital One, Citi, DoorDash, Facebook, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Google, Instacart, JPMorgan Chase, Klarna, Marqeta, PayPal, Square, Synchrony, TD Bank, Venmo, Walgreens, Wells Fargo, Zeta