Which Credit Cards Are Most Secure?
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Which card issuers have the best fraud protection? Javelin Research has studied the security practices of 25 of the largest card-issuing financial institutions and retailers in the country and has come up with a series of top 5 lists for fraud prevention, fraud detection, fraud resolution and best overall. Interesting study, especially since it mixes bad news with the good. |
Here are the results from Javelin's "Card Issuer Scorecard Study":
Overall: Safest card issuers
Bank of America (Visa Platinum)
American Express (Blue from American Express)
(2-way tie) Discover (Discover Platinum), First National Bank Omaha (Platinum Edition Visa)
Citibank (Citi Platinum Select)
Navy Federal Credit Union (Platinum MasterCard)
Fraud Prevention: Top card issuers
Citibank (Citi Platinum Select)
(3-way tie) Bank of America (Visa Platinum), First National Bank Omaha (Platinum Edition Visa), Navy Federal Credit Union (Platinum MasterCard)
Discover (Discover Platinum)
JPMorgan Chase (Chase Platinum Visa)
Nordstrom (Platinum Visa)
Fraud Detection: Top card issuers
American Express (Blue from American Express)
U.S. Bank (U.S. Bank Visa Platinum)
Bank of America (Visa Platinum)
Discover (Discover Platinum)
(3-way tie) Capital One (Capital One Platinum MasterCard), First National Bank Omaha (Platinum Edition Visa), Wachovia (Wachovia Visa)
Fraud Resolution: Top card issuers
(12-way tie) American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank, FNB Omaha, HSBC, National City, Navy FCU, RBS National, State Farm Bank, Target, Wachovia
(8-way tie) BB&T, Commerce Bank, Discover, Nordstrom, Sun Trust, U.S. Bank, WaMu, Wells Fargo
(3-way tie) Fifth Third, GE, USAA
Advanta
JPMorgan Chase
Other findings from Javelin's study (This is the bad news part):
Only 24 percent of card issuers provide user-defined limits and/or prohibitions on cash advances. (An obvious step for minimizing risk to both card holders and issuers.)
More than half (56 percent) of top card issuers still require full nine-digit Social Security numbers when interacting with customers, whether by phone, Internet or mail. (Risky business for both customers and companies which have to protect this data -- especially since, according to CIO Insight's September security survey, their security policies often have gaping holes). (Click here and go to Finding 4, for a summary of the data)
16 percent of card issuers provide an alert for physical address change. (Shouldn't this be an obvious practice?)
84 percent of issuers report having a data breach resolution plan in place. (But how good is it?)
Javelin gathered this data by using the so-called "mystery shopper" method: Javelin researchers contacted customer service reps at these companies, said they were prospective card holders, and asked a series of questions about their practices. They spoke with between three and nine reps per card issuer.
So congratulations to the top five...but with so many card issuers failing to take basic precautions this survey is bad news for many consumers.
PS -- unfortunately, Javelin won't release which card issuers did worse in each category or worse overall. But the card issuers studied includes:
Advanta
American Express
Bank of America
BB&T
Capital One
Citibank
Commerce Bank
Discover
Fifth Third Bank
FNB Omaha
GE
HSBC
JPMorgan Chase
National City Bank
Navy FCU
Nordstrom Bank
RBS Nat'l
State Farm Bank
SunTrust
Target
US Bancorp
USAA
Wachovia
WaMu
Wells Fargo
A "preview" of the study is available at the research page on Javelin's Web site. The full study costs $1,500.
